Example 15: Quad Ridge Dual Polarized Vivaldi Horn

This interesting eBay find is a Teflon PCB dual polarized Vivaldi pair.  It was specified in its listing as 698 to 6000 MHz for mobile phone testing. With dimensions of 100x100mm, we suspected it was too small to work at 700 MHz, but the Teflon PCB material hinted at microwave performance. 

We tested this antenna up to 18 GHz in full 3D gain at 669 frequencies. What we found was that the lower useable limit with any organized directivity was about 1500 MHz. Forward gain ranged from about +2 dBi to a maximum of +8 dBi over the useful spectrum up to about 10 GHz. Above that, the pattern fell apart and gain was highly variable. In fact, over the best operating range of 1.5 to 10 GHz, there was a lot of gain ripple making this a poor choice for calibration. The eBay seller branded this under “Sunflower Antenna”. 

The Excel data set with graphs may be downloaded HERE

The 3D plot-files may be downloaded HERE