[BC] Engineering Advice

[RichardBJohnson at comcast.net]

Before there were computers in the hands of practically everyone, this
kind of power distribution was called "binomial distribution." Its
purpose was to minimize sidelobes. Nowadays, computer programs exist
which are designed to minimize sidelobes as well and at the same
time broaden or narrow the main lobe depending upon the site-specific
requirements. A typical distribution might be a "raised cosine" or even
a window-function initially designed for spectrum analysis such as
Blackman-Harris. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Window_function. Note
that such an apodization function works because an antenna array
acts as a group of point-sources, effectively creating a sampled
function.

Cheers,
Richard B. Johnson
Website http://AbominableFirebug.com

----- Original Message -----
From: "Mike McCarthy" <Towers at mre.com>

Here is a really good example.

They ended up using a very specific spacing and power ratio to each bay. I 
think it was an 8 bay with power ratio of .25 on the end bays, .5 on the 
next bays in, and 1 on the inner 4 bays.  Or was it 0.1, 0.4, 0.8 and 1.0.

There is a specific math term applicable to this type of stepping which I 
can't recall.  Bob...please help me here.  I going on fuzzy memory.