The effect of an unbalance on the current along a dipole antenna

The effects of an unbalanced component of current on the distribution of the current along a dipole antenna driven by a two-wire transmission line has been studied experimentally. It was found that an unbalanced component of current on the line significantly influences the measured distributions of current along antennas of shorter lengths. A quantitative study was made by decomposing the currents into symmetric and antisymmetric parts. The associated unbalance in the transverse field distribution was measured by a field probe and correlated with the ratio of the amplitudes of the symmetric to antisymmetric components of current in the transmission line and the antenna.