An experimental multiple-direction universally steerable aerial system for h.f. reception

An earlier paper presented briefly the principles underlying a proposal for an h.f. directional aerial system, steerable in both azimuth and elevation, which comprised an array of omnidirectional unit aerials whose outputs for any given received signal could be brought approximately into phase by wideband phase-shift networks switched under the control of a special-purpose computer. An experimental system based on these principles has been constructed. The design factors involved are discussed in the present paper which shows that the performance that can be realized in a practical system approximates to the theoretically achievable performance. The application of the technique to the synthetic design of aerial systems is discussed briefly.