1

Design and construction of a Yagi-Uda antenna for

the 433 MHz band
Mickey Derks, Rik Freije, Erik de Groot, Niels Leijen, Bart Meyers, Boi Okken,
Daan Pandavingh and Michel Vermaire

Abstract—The design and construction process of a Yagi-

Uda antenna for operation in the 433MHz band are presented,
with an emphasis on the theory and design techniques. The
antenna dimensions were calculated using computer assisted
design techniques, after deciding on the material dimensions
based on the construction strength. The simulated antenna had a
beamwidth of 35°, and a gain of 13,4dBi. While the constructed
antenna was measured to have a beamwidth of 16°, a length of
1780mm, and a price of 24,50 euros.
Index Terms—Yagi-Uda, directional radiation pattern, linearly
polarized antenna, antenna design, construction

I. I NTRODUCTION
INEARLY polarized antennas are often used in LPD433
L (Low Power Device 433 MHz) applications. Because of
the license free nature of this band, maximum legal power
in most countries is 10 mW which limits its range severely.
Other methods should be used to achieve reasonable range for
longer range communications, preferably an energy efficient
solution. By using linearly polarized directional antennas gain
in a certain direction can be increased significantly without
increasing power consumption. The antenna itself should be
bound by requirements, in this specific design the following
parameters were used: Input impedance of 75 ohms, Beam
width <100°, a length of under 2 metres. One main advantage
of LPD433 modules is the low cost and availability, the
antenna should therefore be designed on a low budget as well,
preferably under 25 euros.
II. O PERATING PRINCIPLES
In this section the operating principles of the Yagi-Uda
antenna and the balun will be discussed. This is to comprehend
the working of the antenna itself and how this affects the
design of the antenna and its surrounding components.
A. Yagi-Uda
The Yagi-Uda consists of three types of elements. The only
driven element is the driver, the second element from the left
in Fig. 1. This is a halfwave dipole and is resonant with
the transmitting frequency. The first passive element is the
reflector, the first bar from the left in Fig. 1. This element is
slightly longer than the driver making it inductive. This causes
the induced current to lag the voltage. This induced current
will produce a wave with a different amplitude and phase.
When the reflector is placed at a distance from the driver
this will create an extra phase difference. When superposed
on the waves created by the driver they will amplify on the
Figure 1. Typical Yagi-Uda configuration with five director elements[1]
front, right in Fig. 1, of the antenna and attenuate towards the
rear. The other type of passive element is the director. Usually
there are multiple directors, more directors result in a higher
directivity. These elements are slightly shorter than the driver
making them capacitive. This causes the current to lead the
voltage. This creates the same effect as with the reflector but
in the other direction.
B. Balun
To prevent a coax cable from behaving like an antenna the
current flowing to ground needs to be the exact opposite of
the current flowing to the antenna. This situation is called
balanced. However, the output of the transmitter is unbalanced
as the mantle is grounded and the signal is only carried through
the core. A balun is a component that can make an unbalanced
signal balanced. For a balun a coax cable can be used with a
length of 12 λ that is connected between the two feed points of
the antenna. There will be a phase shift of 180° which equals
a signal of the same magnitude in the opposite direction. The
balun will also change the impedance of the antenna. There is
double the voltage and double the current, thus resistance the
transmitter "sees" will be a quarter of what it was originally.
III. D ESIGN
The following subsection will specify the design and con-
struction of the antenna. It will explain how the dimensions
 2

Table I
A NTENNA DIMENSIONS AND SPACINGS

Length (mm) Spacing (mm) Position (mm)

Reflector 348.7 30.0 30.0
Radiator 342.5 138.0 168.0
Director 1 308.7 51.8 220.0
Director 2 305.1 124.3 344.3
Director 3 301.8 148.5 492.8
Director 4 298.7 172.7 665.5
Director 5 295.8 193.4 858.9
Director 6 293.2 207.2 1066.1
Director 7 209.7 217.6 1283.7
Director 8 288.4 228.0 1511.7
Director 9 286.3 238.3 1750.0

Figure 2. Enhanced coax attachment points

of the antenna were chosen. The building process will be dis-
cussed as well as the matching circuit necessary for impedance
matching.
A. Antenna design process
Yagi-Uda antennas are extremely hard to calculate by hand,
increasingly so with a larger number of directors. There are
two main ways Yagi-Uda antennas are calculated. The first
is with lookup tables, these tables are constructed out of
experimental/simulation data. The second is with brute force
calculations. In the specific design of this antenna, the second
option was chosen. A very popular freeware calculator[2]
developed by J. Drew is often used for large (8+ element)
Yagi-Uda antennas. This calculator is based on the work
of radio amateur K. Rothammel[3], who developed a lot of
equations for the construction of Yagi-Uda antennas. These
equations were further refined over a 2-decade period and used
in countless other calculators which most often refined with the
use of genetic algorithms. In this design, a total of 11 elements
were used, this yields the dimensions shown in Table I.
B. Practical antenna building
The material cost of the antenna was 24,50 euro. This
was spent on a square beam of 20x20x2000mm and 6 steel
threaded rods (M6x1000mm), hex nuts and serrated washers.
The beam was chosen to be made from galvanized steel,
because it is stronger and much cheaper than other materials
like wood or aluminium. The steel beam conducts, but this is
not a problem since the potential is zero at the points where the
body is connected to the elements. The length of the elements
has to be increased to compensate for the thickness of the
grounded beam, though. It was decided that the elements were
to be made out of the steel threaded rod, because it is strong
and easy to mount to the body. Thus, a better build accuracy
can be achieved than using other materials, which is important
for high gain antennas, at the cost of lower conductivity than
some other materials (copper has approximately six times
higher conductivity, but the resistance of the antenna is already
quite low, especially since the used rod is relatively thick).
Next the rod was inserted into holes drilled in the square
beam, after which they were centered and fastened. The folded
dipole that functions as active element was also constructed
from a, bended, piece of threaded rod. Thread was cut into the
beam, to ease centering the elements before firmly attaching
them using nuts and washers. Finally, small pieces of copper
wire were soldered to the beam and the dipole (using a gas
burner)(Fig. 2), so the feeding coax cable and balun could be
soldered easily using a standard, small soldering iron.
C. Matching circuit
To radiate maximum power, The impedance of the antenna
needs to be the complex conjugate of the cable with which it
is connected to the transmitter. With the used coax cable, the
impedance is only real and 75Ω. To make sure the antenna
also has an impedance of 75Ω, a matching circuit is needed
to compensate for the capacitive/inductive nature of the Yagi-
Uda. This can be done by adding a capacitor/inductor in series
with the same opposite imaginary impedance as the Yagi-Uda.
However, it is not trivial to accurately create the required
small capacitors or inductors at the used high frequency. A
better way to compensate for the antenna impedance is to use
sections of different coax of a given length. When cut to the
correct lengths, the reflections in these mismatched sections
act as an impedance transformation. The real part of the
impedance difference could be compensated as well[4]. Since
it is difficult to accurately cut and attach these sections, and
imaginary part of the impedance was only −7jΩ, impedance
matching did not improve the result, therefore it was removed
later.
IV. S IMULATED AND M EASURED P ERFORMANCE
To validate the design, the antenna is to be simulated
and measured to show the differences between the theory,
simulations, and results. The transmitter used in the front to
back ratio and radiation measurements is the QAM-TX1[5].
The receiving antenna used is a 14 wave monopole connected
to an Agilent 4395A spectrum analyzer.
A. Impedance
The simulated impedance gotten from 4nec2 for the Yagi-
Uda antenna was 74, 8 − 7jΩ. The impedance was measured
with a R&S ZVA50 Vector Network Analyzer. The real part
of the impedance is shown in Fig. 3 for frequencies from
 3

Figure 3. Real impedance of antenna

(a)
334Mhz to 534Mhz. The resistance at 434Mhz is approx-
imately 130Ω, there is variance caused by the surrounding
equipment and metal cabinets. The imaginary part was neg-
ligible. The impedance can still be matched to cancel the
imaginary part away. However, The results show that this part
is so small, that impedance matching would not improve the
efficiency by a large margin. A small inductor would have
to be constructed on the antenna, of which the soldering
joints and wires would introduce a parasitic impedance, these
will keep the impedance from being accurate enough to
successfully implement a matching circuit to a good effect.

B. Radiation pattern
1) Simulated radiation pattern: The simulated 2D radiation
pattern is shown in Fig. 4, while the simulated 3D radiation
pattern is shown in Fig. 5. The maximum gain simulated in
4nec2 is 13,4 dBi
2) Measured radiation pattern : Beforehand it should be
noted that the measurement environment was less than ideal.
There were a lot of conducting and reflecting objects in the
(b)
measurement environment (bikes, buildings etc.). The distance
between the transmitting and receiving antenna has been Figure 4. Simulated radiation pattern in the horizontal (a) and vertical (b)
plane
estimated to be 80m. The angle of the antenna has been
measured by the means of an electronic compass.
Table II
As seen in Fig. 6 above and Table III in Appendix A, it F RONT TO BACK RATIO MEASUREMENTS
can be concluded that the theory (Fig. 4b) and practice match.
They both have the same shape although the antenna seems to angle dBm
0 -37
be even more directional than the simulations suggested, this 180 -62
could be due to the less than ideal measurement environment
creating reflections. Furthermore the theory suggested that the
other signals should be below the noise floor and that seemed measurements are shown in Table II. The front to back ratio
to be correct. can be easily found by subtracting the two. This gives a front
3) Front to back ratio : Front to back ratio was measured to back ratio of 25 dB.
at a distance of 6 meters of the receiving antenna. First the
antenna was pointed directly at the receiving antenna and the
dBm was measured. The same was done with the antenna
pointed with the rear directly pointed at the antenna. The
 4

A PPENDIX A
M EASUREMENT R ESULTS

Table III
R ESULT MEASUREMENTS , DISTANCE 80 M , NOISE FLOOR AT -80 D B M

Step Angle in Degrees dBm

0 0 -61
1 2 -61
2 4 -61.5
3 6 -63
4 8 -65
5 10 -65
6 12 -66
7 14 -66.5
8 16 -66.5
9 18 -67
10 20 -67
Figure 5. Simulated 3D radiation pattern, antenna positioned in the y-direction 11 22 -68
12 23 -69.5
13 25 -70
14 27 -71
15 29 -72
16 31 -72
17 33 -73
18 35 -74.5
19 37 -75
20 39 -76.5
21 41 -77
22 43 -80

ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors would like to thank Dr. Ir. W. Olthuis and Bsc.
Figure 6. Measured frontal lobe performance, note that the other lobes are B. Sikkens for assisting and guiding the project. Thanks go
under the noise floor out to Ing. G.J.M. Wienk and MSc J.D.A. van den Broek as
well for helping with the antenna impedance measurements.
Also thanks go out to the BIOS group at the University of
Twente for giving access to their equipment.
V. S UMMARY AND C ONCLUSIONS
R EFERENCES
[1] Comprod. "uhf yagi antennas series 480-70". [Online]. Available:
comprodcom.com/data/images/Antenne_de_base/480-70.jpg
[2] J. Drew, “Yagi antenna calculator.” [Online]. Available: vk5dj.com/yagi.
html
[3] K. Rothammel, Antennenbuch, 7th ed. Berlin: Deuthscher Militärverlag,
The goal was to design an antenna capable of efficiently 1969.
[4] W. L. B. Cebik. "series matching: A review". [Online]. Available: http:
radiating 434MHz electromagnetic waves while staying within //web.archive.org/web/20121008151416/http://w4rnl.net46.net/ser.html
certain design limits. These limits were chosen in order to [5] Quasar. (2005, Nov) "am transmitter module qam-tx1".
keep the the cost and physical size low while maintaining a [Online]. Available: http://media.digikey.com/pdf/Data%20Sheets/RF%
20Solutions%20PDFs/QAM-TX1.pdf
high point-to-point transmitting efficiency. Ideally the antenna
should also be sturdy enough to prevent detuning through
rough handling or environmental conditions. The final design
had a beamwidth of 35°, 13,4dBi maximum gain and was
1780mm long. The 13,4 dBi gain is on the high end for Yagi-
Uda antennas at this wavelength. Mainly because increasing
the amount of elements is the only way to efficiently increase
this antennas gain, which causes extremely large antennas.
Although similar gain Yagi-Uda antennas often only have 9
elements instead of 11. The constructed antenna was, with a
beamwidth of 16°, well within the 100° beamwidth design
limit that was set by the group and it was more than twice as
directive as the simulations suggested, while keeping its length
under the 2 meters. The antenna was, with a price of 24,50
euros, within budget with 50 cents spare.