Out-of-Band Response of Reflector Antennas

The response of reflector antennas to out-of-band frequencies has been analyzed using physical optics. A simple approximate expression has been obtained for the effective aperture, and this expression yields both the receiving pattern and the frequency dependence of the on-axis gain. The theory has been compared with published out-of-band measurements, and the pattern agreement is good, but the measured gain falls below the theory. This discrepancy is caused by mismatch loss in the coax-to-waveguide adapter.