Skip to content
RFrftools.io
An

Antenna Design Calculators

8 free calculators with formulas and worked examples.

Dipole, patch, Yagi, horn, parabolic dish, and loop antenna calculators for gain, beamwidth, EIRP, and resonant frequency from VHF to microwave bands.

About Antenna Design Calculators

Antennas are transducers between guided electromagnetic waves (in transmission lines) and unguided waves (in free space). Their performance is characterized by gain, beamwidth, impedance, bandwidth, and polarization — all determined by physical geometry and the surrounding environment.

Dipole antennas are the reference: a half-wave dipole has 2.15 dBi gain, omnidirectional azimuth pattern, and ~73 Ω feed impedance. Shortening the dipole increases impedance (adding a series capacitance) and reduces efficiency; loading coils or capacity hats restore resonance without full physical length. Yagi-Uda arrays stack a driven dipole with parasitic directors and a reflector to achieve 7-15 dBi gain with a narrow beam — standard for VHF/UHF amateur radio, satellite downlink, and point-to-point links.

Patch antennas are planar resonant structures built on dielectric substrates, popular in WiFi, GPS, and mobile devices where low profile and PCB integration matter. Gain is typically 5-8 dBi with broad beamwidth. Horn antennas are the RF equivalent of optical lenses — they flare a waveguide mouth to reduce diffraction and achieve 10-25 dBi gain with clean aperture efficiency, widely used as feed elements for parabolic dishes.

EIRP (effective isotropic radiated power) combines transmit power and antenna gain into a single figure of merit that determines received power at any range via the Friis equation. Regulatory limits (FCC Part 15, ETSI EN 300 328) specify maximum EIRP — not transmit power alone — making this calculator essential for compliance work.