Why Polar Plots Lie — and What Antenna Builders Should Really Focus On

Every ham loves a good polar plot. A beautiful lobe here, a crisp null there — it looks scientific. Precise. Trustworthy.

But here's the truth:
Most polar plots for wire antennas are a fantasy.

They're often:

  • Modeled in free space (i.e., outer space),
  • Calculated over "average ground" that doesn’t exist anywhere,
  • Built with no nearby objects — no roof, no trees, no cables, no mast, no neighbor’s shed,
  • And most critically: they assume ideal current distribution and perfect symmetry.

In reality:

  • If you have anything within one wavelength — and you do — that plot is meaningless.
  • Radiation patterns get skewed, nulls fill in, lobes tilt, and gain drops.
  • What looked like a textbook lobe on NEC is often a blurred blob in real-world conditions.

Even worse: many hams take these plots literally and are disappointed when their antenna doesn’t “hear off the back” or produce that magic lobe at 30°.

What matters more?

Instead of chasing modelled patterns:

  • Maximize current in the radiating segment.
  • Place the peak current where it contributes most (away from lossy ground or clutter).
  • Reduce loss paths: poor grounds, lossy matching, common-mode current.
  • Understand current tapering, coupling, and height — not just SWR.

Want real radiation?

Stop believing the fairy tales of clean lobes and 5 dBi gain in your backyard.

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Written by Joeri Van Dooren, ON6URE – RF, electronics and software engineer, complex platform and antenna designer. Founder of RF.Guru. An expert in active and passive antennas, high-power RF transformers, and custom RF solutions, he has also engineered telecom and broadcast hardware, including set-top boxes, transcoders, and E1/T1 switchboards. His expertise spans high-power RF, embedded systems, digital signal processing, and complex software platforms, driving innovation in both amateur and professional communications industries.