The scheikunaff-friis dipole: the simplest antenna of all

The quasistatic electrical properties of what may be the simplest of all antennas, suggested initially by Schelkunoff and Friis (S.A. Schelkunoff and H.T. Friis, 1952), are derived. Following a brief review of the advantages of this antenna - i.e., that the capacitance and effective height may be specified precisely and independently in terms of physical dimensions - the equivalent circuit is completed by including the inductance and loss resistance. With an emphasis on simplicity, electrostatic and magnetostatic theory are applied to the determination of each component of a complete low-frequency equivalent circuit. The results of this analysis were validated with a commercially available finite-element method (FEM) program, applied to three examples that covered a wide range of antenna shapes. From another standpoint, since it has been verified that the electrical properties may be accurately determined with a minimum of calculation, this antenna should also be useful in the opposite sense, as a validation standard for other numerical programs