Development of a precision biconical antenna for broadband metrology applications

A precision 1.37-meter 60-degree, wire-cage, biconical antenna has been developed for EMC and other metrology applications over the frequency range of 30-300 MHz. Contrary to the indications of some previously-performed studies undertaken by the ANSI C-63.5 working group on antennas these results indicate that the 1.37-meter biconical antenna can provide acceptable, repeatable performance over the entire 30-300 MHz range (as opposed to only 30-200 MHz) when realized in a precision package and attention is paid to the several key areas: deviation from minimum-scattering behavior, spurious modes in the wire-cage radiating elements, BALanced-to-UNbalanced transformer (BALUN) performance, and capacitive base loading in the parallel resonance region.