Radiation Resistance of a Straight Wire Antenna

antennaimpedance-matchingRF

I am new to antenna theory, and I have been reading up on antenna properties to create my own antenna.

I want to use a piece of copper wire, maybe around 18 gauge, as a monopole antenna, but it will also be electrically short, at least less than lambda/10.

Furthermore, the antenna will be designed for a single frequency.

Other than the fact that electrically short antennas have a high input reactance, I can't find any information on how to calculate the radiation resistance of a straight, round wire without using a network analyzer. Does anybody know of any information or software I could use to calculate this radiation resistance for impedance matching? Thanks!

Best Answer

A monopole antenna have a varying radiation resistance according to the ground plane size. You can use a series coil to eat up the capacitive parts of a short monopole and you would get a pretty good match with a 50ohm receiver front-end.