Click here to go to the applet.

This java applet is a simulation that demonstrates waves generated by antennas and antenna arrays in two dimensions.

The Setup popup can be used to view some interesting pre-defined experiments. Once an experiment is selected, you may modify it all you want. The choices are:

The Show Intensity checkbox determines whether to show the wave intensity, or the waves themselves. When this is unchecked, the positive wavefronts are shown in green, and negative in red. Viewing the waves (instead of the intensity) only works well when zoomed in, using a low frequency; otherwise the individual waves are too small to see.

The Show Graph checkbox shows the current distribution along the antenna (for linear antennas) or the excitation coefficients (for arrays). The phase is indicated using different colors.

The Show Info checkbox can be used to turn off the information shown in the lower-right hand corner for some antenna setups.

The Stopped checkbox stops the applet, in case you want to take a closer look at something, or if you want to work on something with the mouse without worrying about it changing out from under you.

The Alternate Rendering checkbox is used to speed up rendering, but it actually slows things down on some machines.

The Speed slider controls how far the waves move between frames.

The Zoom Out slider zooms out when you slide it to the right. This slows things down quite a bit.

The Resolution slider allows you to speed up or slow down the applet by adjusting the resolution; a higher resolution is slower but looks better. Also, increasing the resolution acts like zooming out.

The Source Frequency slider controls the frequency of the signal.

The Brightness slider controls the brightness, just like on a TV set. This can be used to view faint waves more easily.

Click here to go to the applet.



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