What is a Dipole Antenna?
As the name says, the antenna consists of two poles or terminals through which the RF current flows. A RF transformer known as ‘balun’ is inserted in the system where the feed line connects the antenna, for optimizing the RF current distribution on the antenna element and in the feed line. The current amplitude consistently decreases from being maximum at the center to zero at the ends. Whereas the RF voltage is maximum at the ends and minimum at the center. This current and corresponding voltages cause the electromagnetic or radio signals to radiate. The antenna can be oriented horizontally, vertically or slantingly. The polarization of the electromagnetic field (EM) radiated by the transmitting antenna correlates to the orientation of the element. While receiving the RF signals, the antenna is extremely sensitive to EM fields whose polarization is analogous to the orientation of the element. Different types of simple dipole antenna include folded dipole antennas, ideal half wavelengt
