Adding Antennas in TAP™
Q: How do I use an antenna I need that is not in the TAP library?
A: The sample Antenna Libraries provided with TAP6 currently contain over 14,000 antenna patterns from several different manufacturers.
The libraries provided with TAP were created from manufacturers’ data and are intended as sample antennas to use with TAP. Even if you find the particular antenna you need in the sample libraries, it is recommended that you check with the manufacturer to ensure that the antenna is still available and to verify that the specifications have not changed. The manufacturer may be able to provide you with a measured antenna pattern at exactly your frequency, or with other customized specifications, such as downtilt, etc., that will be a more precise model of the antenna you want to use in TAP.
When you need an antenna that you do not find in the sample libraries, TAP provides an import function to enable you to add antennas easily so that you can use them in link budgets and area coverage studies in TAP. You can contact the antenna manufacturer or visit their web site to obtain the pattern information for your antenna. (The RFYellow web site is a helpful starting point to find contact information for a number of equipment manufacturers and suppliers in the radio industry.)
If the manufacturer provides machine-readable antenna patterns in several formats, your best option is usually the Planet™ format. After you obtain the files for the antennas you want in the Planet format, you can import them into TAP by selecting the “Generic” import filter (described in the Antenna Editor article).
You can import the antennas into one of the existing libraries, or you can create a new library file to contain just the antennas you most commonly use. That custom library can simplify the process of finding and selecting the antennas you are most interested in using, and it can contain antennas from various manufacturers – whatever files you import into the custom library.
In the event that you have an antenna file from a manufacturer that you have trouble importing into TAP, you can email a description of the problem to SoftWright support and attach the antenna files to the email.
If you need to add an antenna to the TAP libraries and the pattern is not available in a machine-readable file that can be imported into TAP, you can also create an antenna and enter the pattern manually in the Antenna Editor. Once you have entered and saved the pattern once, it can be used in TAP like any other antenna library pattern.
You can also add antennas to the TAP libraries using the Omni-Pattern distortion module in TAP. This module simulates the effects of mounting a vertical omnidirectional antenna on a tower and creates the directional pattern resulting from the effects of the tower legs. The resulting pattern can also be saved in a library for use in TAP studies.
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Copyright 2007 by SoftWright LLC