Week 1: Extendable Helical Antennae: Set-up

Hello! If you are reading this, then my senior project idea has interested you! Therefore, to make it easier for you readers to keep track of what’s happening, I present the following, rough timeline:

1. Constructing a simple dipole antenna and analyzing it’s output
2. Constructing a helical antenna and analyzing it’s output
3. Constructing an extendable helical antenna and analyzing it’s output
4. Comparing results

Blog posts will be titled appropriately so it’s easy to check the overall progress this project has completed.

Please note that this timeline is subject to change to account for any unforeseen circumstances that may occur during the engineering and analysis process. If any large-scale changes do occur, they will be noted within their respective blog post.

Lastly, I would like to address how the “output” of each antenna will be analyzed. As of now, I am planning on building a receiver for the antennae and using it to measure the distance that the radio waves created by the antenna will travel (gain, area). Since radio waves tend to travel long distances, there may be a drive involved. Additionally, if needed, mathematical simulations will be utilized to show how far specific radio waves from a specific antenna theoretically travel. Once again, the goal of this project is to build an extendable antenna and compare its output to that of a regular helical antenna in hopes of gauging how efficient an extendable antenna is.

See you soon!