High-power broadband antenna

DETAILED DESCRIPTION The presently preferred embodiment described below of a high-power broadband whip antenna is directed to HF band antennas.
However, this embodiment of the present invention does not preclude other embodiments and advantages that may exist or become obvious to those skilled in the art.
A high-power broadband antenna comprises an impedance matching transformer electrically coupled to a radio frequency source generating an input signal having a base wavelength corresponding to the lowest frequency of the input signal.
The impedance transformer is electrically coupled to at least two vertical antenna sections.
Each antenna section comprises a plurality of substantially collinear electrically conductive radiating elements fixed to an electrical insulator mounted on a horizontal ground plane.
Each radiating element has a length appropriate to effect optimum overall efficiency of the high-power broadband antenna over the frequency bandwidth of the input signal.
At least two loading elements are each electrically coupled between the radiating elements in each antenna section.
Each loading element comprises a parallel combination of a resistor, an inductor, and a capacitor to effect optimum overall efficiency of the high-power broadband antenna over the frequency bandwidth of the input signal.
In an alternative embodiment, each antenna section may be made of a material having an appropriate combination of resistance, inductance, and capacitance to effect optimum overall efficiency of the high-power broadband whip antenna over the frequency bandwidth of the input signal.
An advantage of the present invention is improved radiation efficiency, about 2-5 percent around 2 MHz and 65-70 percent over 6-30 MHz, depending on the particular antenna configuration used.
The overall efficiency, which takes antenna mismatch loss and all other system losses into account, is also improved.
Another advantage of the present invention is that no resistive attenuator at the input is required to achieve the optimum VSWR, further improving the overall efficiency