Quadripole Antenna System
 

Dual (orthogonal) Short Dipoles with dual preamplifiers

The Quadripole antenna system consists of a pair of orthogonal .01 to 30 MHz receive-only active antennas (AAs) mounted at right angles to each other. It is fed power by way of a single CAT5 cable which also returns RF from each antenna/preamp differentially to the receiver.

When combined with a dual ADC  vector LF-HF SDR, analog or DSP techniques may be used to synthesize wave polarization and to provide antenna beam forming. Because most if not all ionospheric propagation involves RHCP and OHCP propagation, O and X waves, these two may be separated, measured and managed separately.  In this manner., constructive and destructive wave interference in the polarization domain may be used to advantage for study and for improved communications over the entire LF-HF range

A 'strawman' description of a complimentary, 2 channel vector SDR receiving system supports this dual channel application.

The Quadripole  dipoles are mounted on a PVC housing which contains a very high impedance preamplifier connected to each of the four monopoles and opposing pairs of outputs are followed by a high dynamic range broadband differential amplifier having fixed gain.  Each differential output then drives one pair of the CAT5 cable where it is conveyed to the receiver location, received in hardware and possibly combined to synthesize polarization or provide beam forming, noise rejection and whatever else may be useful.  This synthesis and combination may also be done more flexibly and precisely using a dual-channel vector SDR and digital signal processing.

Closer view of the Quadripole monopoles and preamplifier

Quadripole preamplifiers/amplifiers and power conditioning.

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