Controlling Tip Reflections on a Pulse-Excited Thin-Wire Dipole [Antenna Designer's Notebook]

A straightforward method of controlling the tip reflections on a thin-wire dipole is presented. When the dipole is excited by a source consisting of a single short pulse, the resulting feed-point current is effectively limited to two pulses, and the far-field radiation is limited to a sequence of three (or four, in general) pulses. The method relies on a single resistor at the feed point, with a value of 1131 ohms, including the source resistance. A theoretical justification is presented, along with measurements that show good agreement.