Tactical Antenna Course By Tonex
Tactical Antenna Course is a 3-day course that covers the theory and practice of tactical antenna principles and operations in military applications.
Learn how to design, build, operate and maintain different tactical antenna types. Tactical antenna applications and properties including EM, spectrum of frequencies covering HF, VHF, UHF, mmWaves, and microwave, radar, space antennas, complex radio architecture, and anything else from 50 kHz to 300 GHz.
A tactical antenna used in the field of military communications and operations has to provide reliable and secure communications for the warfighter. Tactical Antenna Training course is a hands-on program, and everyone will design and build a simple tactical antenna and verify and validate the properties in the class. TONEX provides all the material and the testing equipment, and the attendees will keep their antennas.
This Antenna bootcamp course provides the fundamental antenna and wave theory properties, operations, utilizations, testing and applications of antennas.
The course provides instructions and skills associated with basic communications theory, Very High Frequency (VHF) and Ultra High Frequency (UHF) communications techniques, gain antenna application, materials and connector utilization, High Frequency (HF) utilization, communications in contested environments, and communications in arctic environments.
Audience
RF operators, scientists, engineers, testers, analysts, managers, technicians, soldiers, field personnel, and project planners.
What You Will Learn
- Basics of How tactical antennas work
- The basics of electromagnetic principles applied to tactical antennas
- Learn the skills associated with basic communications theory, Very High Frequency (VHF) and Ultra High Frequency (UHF) communications techniques
- Basics of link budget, antenna gain antenna application, materials and connector utilization
- Plan, calculate, design, construct, test and troubleshoot your choice of tactical antennas
- Analyze, design, and visualize the radiation characteristics of tactical antennas (antenna horizontal and vertical patterns)
- Analyze and measure antenna polarization
- Basic information essential to a wide variety of practical designs of tactical antennas including horn, dish, yagi, rectangular and circular patches
- Basics of tactical antenna Arrays: Linear, Planar, and Circular
- The fundamentals of tactical Phased Array Antennas
- The fundamentals of tactical SATCOM antennas
- Fundamentals of High Frequency (HF) utilization, communications in contested environments, and communications in arctic environments
- Apply SIGINT and ELINT principles to tactical antennas
Course Content
Introduction to Antenna Theory
- Fundamentals of Radio Communication
- HF, VHF, UHF and EHF propagation
- Antenna Basics
- Basics of Electromagnetic Theory
- RF Propagation
- How Antennas Radiate
- Antenna Types
- Antenna Basics: Radiation, gain, directivity, efficiency, effective area, pattern, impedance, VZWR, Return Loss, antenna noise temperature and polarization
- Radiation Patterns
- Directivity and Gain
- Antenna Impedance
- Radiation Efficiency
- Antenna Polarization
- System Applications for Antennas
- Transmitting and Receiving Properties of Antennas
- Antenna Arrays
- Antennas in Communication Systems
- Phased Array Antennas
- Smart Antennas
- MIMO and MU-MIMO
- Basics of Tactical Antennas
- Principles of reliable and secure communications for the warfighter
- Antennas In Tactical Communication, Space and Radar Systems
Basic Tactical Antenna Concepts
- Antenna properties
- Tactical frequency bands
- Tactical wavelength, frequency and the speed of light
- Impedance, VSWR, RL, bandwidth, directivity, gain, radiation patterns, and polarization
- Natural and man-made noise
- Noise mitigation
- Impedance and matching
- Balance and decoupling
- Gain Antennas and Reflectors
- Kraus helical antennas
- Yagi-Uda antennas
- Passive elements
- Conductors and absorbers
- Skin effect
- RF connectors
- Link Budget calculations
- Gain and losses
- Adapter loss
Fundamental Tactical Antenna Elements
- Radiation pattern
- Field regions
- Directivity
- Azimuth/Direction for Antenna
- Efficiency and Antenna Gain
- Beamwidths and Sidelobes
- Impedance
- Hasty impedance matching
- Smith charts
- Bandwidth
- Frequency independent antennas
- Aperture antennas phased arrays
- Electrically small antennas
- Circularly polarized antennas
- Classification of antenna types
- By frequency
- By size
- By directivity
Overview of High Frequency (HF) Tactical Radios and Antennas
- HF propagation and the ionosphere
- HF Theory
- Ground to Ground HF Communications
- Air to Ground
- Ship to Shore
- Radiation Pattern
- Radiation Power Density
- Radiation Intensity
- Beamwidth
- Directivity
- Numerical Techniques
- Antenna Efficiency
- Gain
- Beam Efficiency
- Bandwidth
- Polarization
- Input Impedance
HF Communication and Antenna Construction
- Analyzing HF antennas: dipole, random wire, V beam, slant
- propagation
- Principles of modulation
- Tactical operator procedure and discipline
- Operation of various sized tactical networks
- Overview of VMF and other tactical links
- Station set up, connections, power supplies and accessories programming and configuration
- HF gain antennas
- NVIS antennas
- Antenna matching at HF
- ALE / multiband operation
- HF field-expedient antennas
- Survivable networks
- Concealment / covert antennas
- Jammers
- SIGINT and basics of Direction Finding (DF)
- How to mitigate DF
- Case Study: AN/PRC-150
Overview of SATCOM Tactical Radios
- Communications in clandestine ops
- Challenges of SATCOM
- HF propagation at high latitudes
- Temperature and weather effects
- Ground effects
- GEO, MEO, HEO and LEO constellations
Tactical Antenna Theory: Analysis and Design
- Polarization of Waves
- Polarization of Antennas
- Antenna Measurements
- Working with Smith Charts and Impedance Matching
- Use of Couplers
- Site Survey
- Troubleshooting
- Radio Checks
- Terminating Links
- Field Expedient Antennas, Grounding and Bonding
- EMI/EMC Issues
Phased Array Antennas
- Basics of Phased Array Antennas
- Functional Principle
- Advantages and Disadvantages
- Possible Arrangements
Antenna Engineering Workshop and Case Studies
- Calculations of tactical antenna radiation, gain, directivity, efficiency, effective area, pattern, impedance, noise temperature, and polarization
- Consideration of transmission lines, antenna materials, impedance mismatch, VSWR, Return Loss for selected antennas.
- Testing, verification and validation of electromagnetic measurement and diagnostics
Bootcamp Details: Student activities are geared toward a 3-day block of instruction and antenna design and construction techniques.
Daily classroom instruction, hands-on exercises assessments & practical exercises are given along with other practical exercises. Students will design, construct and test variety of antennas for various communication systems and test their antennas in the local environment using spectrum analyzers, PortoPack HackRF One and other test equipment.