A new class of antenna, the meander-line bow-tie (MLBT) antenna is proposed. Similar to other bent antennas, e.g. zigzag, meander etc., this antenna resonates at a shorter length than a straight-wire monopole or dipole. Also this antenna has superior performance characteristics compared to other bent wire antennas. The results presented in this paper show that the meander-line bow-tie antenna has larger input resistance at resonance than any of the two other bent antennas. Other characteristics such as, radiation pattern, gain, polarization etc., are similar to the straight-wire monopole until the segment lengths exceed some threshold length. As an example, a meander-line bow-tie antenna is described in this paper which radiates as a dipole and which is 39% shorter than a straight-wire dipole. This antenna has an input resistance of 50 /spl Omega/ at resonance and a bandwidth of 8.6% within VSWR<2.