Applications to Short Antenna

The short dipole antenna is the simplest of all

antennas. It is simply an open-circuited wire,
fed at its center as shown in Figure .

The words "short" or "small" in antenna

engineering always imply "relative to a
wavelength". So the absolute size of the above
dipole antenna does not matter, only the size of
the wire relative to the wavelength of the
frequency of operation. Typically, a dipole is
short if its length is less than a tenth of a
wavelength:
 If the short dipole antenna is oriented along
the z-axis with the center of the dipole at z=0,
then the current distribution on a thin, short
dipole is given by:

The current distribution is plotted in Figure .

Note that this is the amplitude of the current
distribution; it is oscillating in time
sinusoidally at frequency f.
 The fields radiated from the short dipole
antenna in the far field are given by:

The radiation resistance can be calculated to

be:
 For short dipole antennas that are smaller
fractions of a wavelength.
the radiation resistance becomes smaller than
the loss resistance, and consequently this
antenna can be very inefficient.
The bandwidth for short dipoles is difficult to
define.
The input impedance varies wildly with frequency
because of the reactance component of the input
impedance.
Hence, these antennas are typically used in
narrowband applications.