An Antenna Bibliography

These are some books that I am personally familiar with. There are LOTS of other books, many of which I am sure are equally as good or better, but these are the ones I know well enough to say something about.

• Caron, Wilfred N., Antenna Impedance Matching, ARRL, Newington, 1989 – A very good book on impedance matching with minimal mathematics, but you better be ready to learn Smith Charts because they are at the heart of everything this author does. If you aren’t willing to learn them, then this book is not for you.

  
  

• Carr, Joseph J, Practical Antenna Handbook, 4th Edition, McGraw-Hill, New York, 2001 – A thick book, but excellent reading. I highly recommend this as the SECOND book you buy (after the ARRL Antenna Handbook).

  
  

• Carr, Joseph J, Practical Radio Frequency Test & Measurement: A Technician’s Handbook, Newnes, Boston, 1999 – if you’re working with antennas, you need to be able to make accurate measurements if you are going to make progress. This is the book to consult for how to make these and any other RF measurements you need for your experimental program.

• Carr, Joseph J, Radio Science Observing, Vols 1 & 2, Prompt Publications, Indianapolis, 1998. – A wide-ranging pair of books for anyone interested in the science aspects of radio. Far simpler than other books, there is nonetheless quite a bit of good material here. However, it’s far more focused on Radio Astronomy and other science uses of radio than anything else.

• Cebik, L.B., Antennas from the Ground Up, Volume 1 1-20, MFJ, 2000 – an excellent collection of articles by LB Cebik, originally published in Low Down, the Colorado QRP Club journal.

  
  

• DeMaw, Doug, Novice Antenna Notebook, ARRL, Newington, Ct, 1988 – really basic antenna building, great for someone just starting to work with antennas.

  
  

• DeMaw, Doug, W1FB’s Antenna Notebook, ARRL, Newington, Ct, 1987 – more good, solid information from the master at making all seem so simple

  
  

• Devoldere, John, ON4UN’s Low-Band Dxing, ARRL, Newington, Ct, 1999 – while the concentration is on low band operations and Dxing, the bulk of the book is about antennas, and it’s very very good. I highly recommend it.

  
  

• Dodd, Peter, The Antenna Experimenter’s Guide. 2nd Edition, RSGB. 1996 – if your interest in antennas is in design or experimentation, than this is a must-have book. It covers in detail the things you need to know to carry out experiments with antennas. If you read carefully and follow the advice in this book, you will be better prepared to test antennas that you design or that you get from other sources.

  
  

• Fiedler, David M and Farmer, Edward J, Near Vertical Incidence Skywave Communication, Worldradio Books, Sacramento, 1996 – A hot topic in antennas right now with lots of people investigating this for local emergency communications.

  
  

• Hall, Gerald, Editor, The ARRL Antenna Book, ARRL, Newington, Ct, 1991 – This annual book by the ARRL is THE master reference work that belongs on everyone’s shelf who is interested in anything to do with antennas or feedlines. You should make it a practice to check here first when you have a question because so many of them are answered here. Crammed with projects and good advice, there is the first stop for everyone. No book covers everything, but this book does better than most.

  
  

• Hall, Gerald, Rinaldo, Paul, and Thompson, Maureen, Editors, The ARRL Antenna Compendium, Vol 1, ARRL, Newington, Ct, 1985 – The first of a line of collections of the best articles about antennas from QST. This series is well worth having with lots of projects and theory all brought together for ease of use.

  
  

• Hutchinson, Chuck, Editor, The ARRL Handbook for Radio Amateurs, ARRL, Newington, Ct, 2000 – Even professionals have this master reference book on their shelves. The chapters on antennas and transmission lines are excellent and worth consulting. It is not as detailed or comprehensive for the antenna designer as the Antenna Book, but it should be on your reference shelf. Since this is another annual publication, you can undoubtedly find a more current edition, but even the old ones often have useful and interesting information.

  
  

• Ingram, Dave, Guide to Emergency Survival Communications, Universal Electronics, Columbus, 1997 – a broad but shallow coverage of a wide range of techniques for communicating in an emergency. There are a number of antennas discussed for a wide variety of emergency uses, but none very deeply.

• Jordon, Edward V., Editor in Chief, Reference Data for Engineers: Radio, Electronics, Computer, and Communications, 7th Edition, Howard W. Sams, Indianapolis, 1985 – A massive reference work. It has an excellent collection of reference information on antennas, but this is for the VERY advanced as there is little explanation.

  
  

• King, Ronold W. P., Mimno, Harry Rowe, and Wing, Alexander H., Transmission Lines, Antennas and Wave Guides, Dover, New York, 1965 – Originally a 15 hour course given during World War II at Harvard Graduate School of Engineering for highly trained officers in Communications. Despite its age, it is still an excellent text, though quite advanced mathematically.

  
  

• Kleinschmidt, Kirk A., Stealth Amateur Radio, ARRL, Newington, Ct, 1999 – can you see the antenna or can’t you? That’s only one of the topics covered here, but there are some good (though well known) ideas for stealthy installations.

  
  

• Kraus, John D., Antennas, 2nd Edition, McGraw-Hill, New York, 1988 – This is THE book on antennas, the one that most other books refer to. Its treatment is graduate level physics or astrophysics with detailed derivations and advanced mathematics. NOT for the unprepared.

  
  

• Kuecken, John A., Antennas and Transmission Lines, MFJ, 1996 – a more mathematical treatment of the problems of feedlines and antennas. Quite good, not as advanced as some, but more than the average amateur literature.

  
  

• Maxwell, W. Walter, Reflections II: Transmission Lines and Antennas, Worldradio Books, Sacramento, 2001 – this is THE book to read about transmission lines. It tries hard to make the concepts clear with no math required. This is a difficult task and can’t quite be done, but there would be fewer people wondering why they aren’t getting out if they read this book and understood transmission lines.

  
  

• Noll, Edward N, Easy-Up Antennas, Howard W. Sams, Indianapolis, 1988 – a very basic book for anyone new to antenna work. Lots of good information here.

  
  

• Orr, William I and Cowan, Stuart D., All About Cubical Quad Antennas, Radio Publications, Wilton, Ct, 1972 – excellent introduction

  
  

• Orr, William I and Cowan, Stuart D., All About Vertical Antennas, Radio Publications, Wilton, Ct, 1986 – excellent introduction

  
  

  Orr, William I and Cowan, Stuart D., Beam Antenna Handbook, Radio Publications, Wilton, Ct, 1983 – excellent introduction

  
  

• Orr, William I and Cowan, Stuart D., Simple, Low-Cost Wire Antennas for Radio Amateurs, Radio Publications, Wilton, Ct, 1972 – excellent introduction

  
  

• Orr, William I and Cowan, Stuart D., The Radio Amateur Antenna Handbook, Radio Publications, Wilton, Ct, 1978 – excellent introduction

  
  

• Schulz, Walter, Wireless Antenna History: A Vertical Design Primer, Wilhelm Herbst Verlag, Cologne, West Germany, 1990 – there is some good material buried here, but the writing is so atrocious that it’s very hard to dig it out. I don’t recommend this one.

  
  

• Sinclair, Jim, Radio Signal Finding, McGraw-Hill, New York, 2001 – not at all what I THOUGHT it was when I bought it. The book is more about picking up weak and unusual signals than about Radio Direction Finding. It’s about locating unusual signals and so covers antennas, but not terribly well. It’s a pretty basic book.