B Tech (Information & Communication Technology)

IInd Semester Core Course

CT-111: Introduction to Communication Systems

Lab 8

Antenna and Transmission Line

Note: This lab is to be carried out in RF laboratory (Lab-110). RF lab does not contain any computers so
you cannot access this lab manual in the above lab. You are requested to be well prepared by reading
this manual well in advance. You can have print outs and you may share among your groups.

(1). Aim:

To measure the characteristics impedance of a transmission line and differentiate between the
matched and unmatched lines.
Observe standing wave patterns and their maxima and minima.
Measure the VSWR (Voltage Standing Wave Ratio), reflection co-efficient and return loss.

Equipments Required:

Transmission Line Analyzer (Falcon TLA-03), CRO, Transmission lines with different characteristic
impedances.

Figure - 1

Procedure:

1. Set up the Transmission Line Analyzer (Falcon TLA-03) Figure 1.

2. Connect the transmission line at the load output terminal.
3. The scope shall display the standing wave pattern if the line is open-circuited or shorted.
4. This is due to reflections from the other end of the line due to impedance mismatch.
5. A coaxial lead shall suffice as a real transmission line.
6. Connect the other end of the transmission line to the load input.
 7. The load input terminal provides a purely resistive termination.
8. Adjust the impedance measure control on TLA so that the standing waves (Figure 2) on the CRO
are minimized.
9. The characteristic impedance of the line is displayed on LCD in ohms.
10. The underlying principal is that when a transmission line is terminated into its characteristics
impedance, no power is reflected from the end of the line and hence there are no standing waves
being formed in the line.
11. Observe the distance between two successive maxima or between two successive minima is /2;
and the distance between a maximum and the next minimum is /4.
12. You will get standing wave patterns when transmission line is terminated other then the
characteristic impedance. When standing wave pattern is being formed, pressed the attenuator to
bring the voltage maxima to the level of voltage minima. Expand the CRO scale display for more
accuracy.
13. The amount of attenuation required will reveal the difference in voltage levels of maxima and
minima at generator end.
14. Say if attenuation required is 6 dB then ratio of voltage minima and maxima is 2. Hence any ratio
can be found out by taking antilog of the attenuation values divided by 20.

Calculations and Result:

Voltage Reflection coefficient is determined as follows:

Z L Z0
=
Z L + Z0
Return loss (dB) = 20 log (Reflection co-efficient)
VSWR (Voltage Standing Wave Ratio) is determined as follows:
1+
VSWR =
1

Figure 2 Standing wave pattern

When a transmission line is terminated into its characteristic impedance, no power is reflected from the
end of the line and hence there are no standing waves being formed in the line. Line is then said to be
matched. The characteristic impedance of a given coaxial line is between 50 to 75 ohms depending on
the type of cable used. Observe the standing waves being nulled out on termination of load in
characteristic impedance.

Transmission line characteristic impedance = Z0 = ____ ohms:

Reflection
Load Impedance
Observation No. Coefficient Return loss (dB) VSWR ( 1)
ZL (ohms)
(-1 to +1)
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
(2). Aim:

To measure the VSWR, Radiation Pattern (Polar) and the Gain of a Waveguide Horn Antenna.

Equipments Required:

Gunn Oscillator, Gunn Power Supply, PIN Modulator or Klystron mount with Klystron Tube, Klystron
Power Supply, Isolator, Variable Attenuator, Detector mount, Horn Antennas (2 Nos.), VSWR Meter.

Theory:
Experimental Set-up:

Figure - 3

Figure - 4
 Figure - 5

Figure - 6
Observations:

Observation No. Angle (degrees) VSWR VSWR (dB)

1 0
2 20
3 40
4 60
5 80
6 100
7 120
8 140
9 160
10 180
11 200
12 220
13 240
14 260
15 280
16 300
17 320
18 340
Student Name: __________________________ Student ID: __________________ Date: _____________

Antenna type: _________________________________________________________________________

Radiation Pattern of the Antenna

(3). Aim:

To analyze far-field radiation pattern for (a). simple /2 dipole antenna, (b). 3/2 dipole antenna, and (c).
Yagi Uda 5-element Folded Dipole Antenna.

Equipments Required:

Antenna Trainer (ST-2261), Receiving Antenna mast, /2 dipole antenna, 3/2 dipole antenna, Yagi Uda
5-element Folded Dipole Antenna.

Figure 7

Figure - 8
Procedure:

1. First use a simple /2 dipole antenna as a transmitting antenna as.

Connect it to transmitting antenna trainer.
2. Measure the distance 2D2/ ; where, D is the maximum dimension of an antenna (here
maximum dimension is the length of the dipole; /2, 3/2, etc...), and is the wavelength
corresponding to the frequency of operation of antenna (here it is 750 MHz for all the antennas
mentioned above).
3. For far-field measurements, the receiving antenna distance from the transmitting antenna
should be greater than 2D2/ .
4. So adjust the receiving antenna mast at a distance little more than 2D2/ .
5. Adjust the receiving antenna gain to have the maximum deflection on the current scale of it.
6. Rotate the transmitting antenna and measure the corresponding receiving currents. Convert
them into respective dB scales by taking 10log(I2) = 20log (I).
7. Repeat the procedure for the remaining antennas and plot the polar plots for the all three.

Observations:

Type of antenna:

Observation No. Angle (degrees) Current at Rx antenna I Current I

(A) (dB)
1 0
2 20
3 40
4 60
5 80
6 100
7 120
8 140
9 160
10 180
11 200
12 220
13 240
14 260
15 280
16 300
17 320
18 340
 Annexure

Introduction to RF/Microwave Components

1) Gunn Power Supply (GS-610): It consists of an electronically regulated DC power supply and a square
wave generator (stable multivibrator) designed to operate Gunn Oscillator and PIN modulator
respectively, as shown in Figure - 9. The DC voltage is variable from 0 to 10 volts (750 mA maximum
current). The PIN diode requires square wave (generally at 1 kHz) to modulate the continuous wave
produced by Gunn oscillator. The frequency of square wave can be continuously varied from 900 Hz to
1100 Hz. The front panel meter can read the Gunn voltage and the current drawn by the Gunn diode.

Figure - 9 Gunn Oscillator with Gunn Power Supply and PIN diode modulator

2) Gunn Oscillator (XG-11): The Gunn oscillator is based on negative differential conductivity effect in
bulk semiconductors (GaAs) which have two conduction bands minima separated by an energy gap. If DC
voltage is applied across it which can produce around 3 kV/cm electric field in it, the device produces
oscillations of frequency f = L/Vd , where L is the length of the GaAs substrate in meters, and Vd is the
drift velocity of electrons in the substrate.

The Gunn oscillator has a Gunn diode mounted in a waveguide cavity which is mechanically tunable over
the frequency range from 8.5 GHz to 11.5 GHz (X-band) by a micrometer controlled tuning plunger.
Maximum output power available is 5 to 10 mW. Typical range of operating voltage is 8 to 10 V and
operating current is 200 to 400 mA. Figure - 10 shows the arrangement for mounting the Gunn device
(diode) in a waveguide. It is known as the Gunn mount.

Figure - 10 Gunn mount

3) PIN Modulator (XM-55): It is used to modulate the continuous wave coming from the Gunn oscillator.
PIN diode is a diode whose resistance varies with bias applied to it. At negative or zero bias, the diode
presents very low impedance. At positive bias, the diode presents very high impedance and therefore
does not affect the signal propagating along the waveguide. This diode is mounted exactly at the center
of the waveguide and fixed next to Gunn mount as shown in Figure - 11.

Figure - 11 PIN modulator

4) Isolator (XI-621): The function of the isolator is to pass the RF/microwave power in one direction only
(i.e., from source to load). It does not allow reflected power to reach to the source. This is necessary to
avoid damage of the source.

5) Variable Attenuator (XA-520): In RF/microwave circuits and systems, we require components which
can absorb all or portion of the RF power falling on them without any appreciable reflections. Such
components are called attenuators. The attenuators can be fixed or variable type.

The attenuators generally employ absorption of RF/microwave power by some dissipative materials
deposited on insulator cards called resistive cards. End-tapered cards are placed parallel to the electric
field to attenuate it in case of fixed attenuators while in variable attenuators, either the pad area is
reduced or orientation of the card is changed. Its depth of insertion is varied with the help of the probe.
Its construction is shown Figure - 12.

Figure 12 Variable Attenuator

6) Frequency Meter (XF-710): The frequency generated by Gunn oscillator is in X-band (8.0 to 12.4 GHz,
typically around 10 GHz). This frequency cannot be measured with the oscilloscope or ordinary
frequency counter. Therefore RF/ microwave frequency meter or cavity wavemeter is used. Figure - 13
shows the construction of the frequency meter.
 Figure - 13 Frequency meter

It is basically a cylinder (or cylindrical cavity) which has its own resonance frequency. In case of the
cylinder, if we change the position of the piston, the height of the cavity changes, resulting in change in
the resonance frequency. When this frequency becomes equal to the frequency through the waveguide
which is coupled to the cavity, the cavity resonates at this frequency. The intensity of the electric and
the magnetic field inside the cavity increases. The losses taking place inside the cavity also increases. All
the power coming from the source is absorbed in the cavity only. Therefore the output power decreases
suddenly. At this frequency, we should stop adjusting the height of the cavity and note down the
frequency indicated on the dial of the frequency meter. This is the input frequency.

7) Detector (XD-451): The RF/microwave detector detects whether the RF/microwave power produced
by the Gunn oscillator. Figure - 14 shows the construction of the detector. The detector diode is fixed
exactly at the center of the waveguide. One end of the diode is connected to the lower wall of the wave-
guide the other end is connected to the inner core of the probe. The Gunn oscillator produces
electromagnetic field in the waveguide. The electric field produces ac voltage across the diode, rectifies
it and produces DC voltage proportional to the field.

Figure - 14 RF/Microwave Detector

11) VSWR meter (SW-115): The output is fed to the VSWR meter, meter scale is calibrated to read VSWR
directly. The probe is moved along the slotted line to get a maximum deflection. Then the VSWR meter
gain is adjusted to read 1.00 on the scale and the probe is moved along the slotted section to get an
adjacent maximum. The VSWR meter reading directly gives the value of VSWR.

12) Klystron: Some RF/Microwave Benches are equipped with Klystron (instead of Gunn oscillator) as
RF/microwave source and Klystron Power Supply. The Klystron makes use of velocity modulation to
transform a continuous beam into RF/Microwave power. The frequency is primarily determined by the
dimensions of the resonant cavity. Hence by changing the volume of the resonator, mechanical tuning of
klystron is possible. Also, a small frequency change can be obtained by changing the reflector voltage.
This is called electronic tuning. Klystron Power Supply is a solid-state, regulated power supply for
operating low power Klystron (2K25).
Figure 25 Complete RF/Microwave Bench

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