12 January 2026 – Dipole Basics with Steve Stearns, K6OIK
The presentation
The dipole is the most basic of antennas. A proper understanding of dipole properties and characteristics is essential to understanding many other antennas including complementary antennas such as slots. In this webinar, Steve Stearns, K6OIK, explains the basic characteristics of dipoles for transmitting and receiving. Some surprises await as we learn that a dipole’s transmit current distribution is not exactly sinusoidal, and the receive distribution is entirely different. Steve explains the physics of the much-misunderstood dipole shortening factor K. And why a dipole’s effective receiving capture area is different from its physical cross-sectional area. And that resonance is a poor indicator of match. Steve indicates which dipole properties are better determined from graphs and equations, and which other properties are better determined by numerical computation, known as modelling.
About the presenter
Steve Stearns, K6OIK, started in amateur radio whilst in high school at the height of the Heathkit era. He holds FCC Amateur Extra and a commercial General Radio Operator license with Radar endorsement. He previously held Novice, Technician, and 1st Class Radiotelephone licenses. He holds degrees from California State University Fullerton, the University of Southern California, and Stanford, all in electrical engineering, and specialized in circuit theory, statistical signal processing, communication theory, and electromagnetic theory. Steve was principal investigator and led teams on R&D projects and technology development for novel antennas and radio and optical communication signal processing systems that perform reception, reconnaissance, surveillance, and signal analysis, including radio direction finding, RF fingerprinting, geo-locating, image processing, and multi-sensor systems.
At retirement he was a Technical Fellow at Northrop Grumman Corporation’s Electromagnetic Systems Laboratory in San Jose, California. Steve is serving as vice-president of the Foothills Amateur Radio Society, and served previously as assistant director of ARRL Pacific Division under Jim Maxwell, W6CF (now Silent Key). Steve has over 100 professional publications and presentations and ten patents. He is a frequent speaker at ARRL Pacific Division’s annual convention, Pacificon, and has published articles in QST and QEX. Steve has received numerous awards for professional and community volunteer activities, including US Congressional recognition. He can be reached via k6oik@arrl.net
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