BOOKS
Updated 17/08/2006
The titles of the books are given below with access to pages with the latest updates.
Backyard Antennas. This is a practical book on antenna construction and how to overcome the limitations of suburban locations. It contains 10 chapters on Centre-fed antennas, End-fed and Marconi antennas for HF and LF, Matching and tuning, Loops and slot antennas for HF, Small rotary beams for HF, VHF and UHF antennas, Antenna materials, construction and supports, transmissions lines and Baluns and Estimating and measuring antenna performance. This book has now been reprinted. For those of you who have an earlier version of this book (printed in 2000) click Addendum and Errata .
Amateur Radio Mobile Radio, The technology of both vehicles and radio has changed considerable since a book on mobile amateur radio was last published. This book addresses the problems of installing radio equipment in a modern vehicle and finding somewhere to fix the antenna. It also covers Maritime Mobile, bicycle mobile and pedestrian mobile. This book was published early November 2001. See Mobile Addendum for updates.
The Antenna Experimenter's Guide (second edition) is mainly concerned with measurement (impedance, resonance and field strength, including beam pattern measurement) although there are chapters on antenna and mast construction. In addition there are chapters on experimental antennas and antenna modelling and antenna modelling software. The book also includes some computer listings of programs for measuring antenna impedance and antenna polar diagrams. However this method of distributing computer programs is no longer appropriate; they are now available as .exe files, which can be downloaded by clicking AEGextra, which also contains additional information on impedance bridge calibration and other addendum.
The arrangement for plotting antenna polar diagrams described in the book is now out of date and has been superceded by Polar Plot. This is a MS Windows package that can be used to plot polar diagrams using the computer soundcard. It is free and available from G4HFQ, http://www.g4hfq.co.uk.
I have been asked for the source code for the software used to convert 3-meter voltages to R +/- Xj . The original was written in GW BASIC so is now out of date. However, the code for the basic algorithm can be obtained by clicking on to zsmall.htm.
The Low Frequency Experimenter's Handbook. In the summer of 1996 the frequency band 71.6 to 74.4kHz came available to UK amateurs as an experimental band for a limited period. It was available by special permit (Notice of Variation) until June 1999. It was then extended until the 30th June 2003 and the final QSOs occurred in the last hour of that date. On January 30th 1998 a new low frequency band of 135.7 to 137.8kHz was allocated to radio amateurs in the UK followed by an increasing number of countries throughout Europe and Canada.
To meet the increasing demand for information on LF The LF Experimenters Handbook was produced and is a collection of articles written by individuals (in a similar style the popular ARRL Antenna Compendium series). The book is divided into several sections, each covering a specific topic; i.e. receivers, transmitters, antennas, specialist modes and measurement. Of the constructional articles shown in this book very few have previously been published. See Addendum and Errata to the LF Experimenter's Handbook for updates; (30th April 2003).
The LF Experimenters Handbook has now been superceded by LF Today, by Mike Dennison, G3XDV; see RSGB book sales below.
Some additional information on LF techniques can be found at LFaficionados.
References
The books described above are available from the RSGB at http://www.rsgb.org (book sales)
They are also available from the ARRL bookshop at http://www.arrl.org ( RSGB Publications).