Study of backfire antennas

the study presented in this article is dedicated to the backfire disk-on-rod antennas fed by a dipole or crossed dipole. for short, these are herein called backfire antennas. backfire antenna constructions with different configurations of the big reflector are considered. the influence of the feed location in the backfire antenna construction upon the antenna characteristics is also examined. the studies were carried out with a corrugated-rod (disks attached to a metal rod) surface-wave structure. the results obtained may be applied to other types of surface-wave structures, such as dipole ar-ray, dielectric rod or dielectric-covered metal rod. the lengths of the investigated antennas ranged between 2λ and 4λ. the design carried out in these investigations may be used for creation of high efficiency backfire antennas.