[KYHAM] ARRL UNVEILS ANTENNA MODELING COURSE

[Ron Dodson]

For the antenna whiz kids out there, this from this
week's ARRL Letter!!!

73, 
Ron


==>ARRL UNVEILS ANTENNA MODELING COURSE

The ARRL Certification and Continuing Education Program
soon will offer its
first technical course--Antenna Modeling. Written by
the well-known author
and historian L.B. Cebik, W4RNL, and edited by ARRL
Senior Assistant
Technical Editor--and antenna guru--Dean Straw, N6BV,
the course offers
students a hands-on tutorial. Registration for Antenna
Modeling (EC-004)
will open Monday, February 11.

The course has been through extensive beta testing
during the past several
weeks, and even the experts found they'd picked up some
new knowledge on the
subject. "I've been modeling antennas using a computer
for about 15 years,
and I certainly learned a great many things in this
course," Straw
commented.

ARRL Certification and Continuing Education Program
Coordinator Dan Miller,
K3UFG, said the experts agreed that the best method to
master the art and
science of antenna design and analysis was to become
familiar with the basic
concepts of computerized antenna modeling and modeling
software. "Using
computer simulations--models--you will study the
performance of a wide
variety of antennas, without having to invest in a test
range or a room full
of test equipment," he said. "In this course, students
will learn to master
the basic techniques of constructing good models."

Several excellent and affordable antenna modeling
software packages are
available. The course will illustrate the elements of
modeling antennas
using two of the most popular packages based on the
NEC-2 core--EZNEC 3.0 by
Roy Lewallen, W7EL <http://www.eznec.com/> and NEC-Win
Plus by
Nittany-Scientific
<http://www.nittany-scientific.com/>.

Beta testers offered positive feedback after completing
the course. "What a
gold mine of information!" said Dan Maguire, AC6LA. "I
found myself looking
forward to taking the next lesson just to see what new
things I could
learn." Former ARRL staff member Chuck Hutchinson,
K8CH, also took a crack
at the program. "Wow, I sure learned a lot about
antenna modeling!" was his
reaction.

Students will have up to 12 weeks to complete the
course material. "There
are 31 lessons, and you should plan to spend one to two
hours per lesson,"
Miller advised. The inaugural class begins Tuesday,
February 26 and wraps up
Tuesday, May 21.

A sample lesson based on the actual Antenna Modeling
course is available on
the ARRL Web site
<http://www.arrl.org/cce/sample-lesson/>. Registration
for
the new Antenna Modeling course opens Monday, February
11, at 4 PM Eastern
Time on the ARRL Course Registration page
<https://www.arrl.org/forms/cce/>.
The registration fee is $80 for ARRL members and $110
for nonmembers.
Continuing Education Units (CEUs) are available for all
ARRL C-CE courses.

Answers to most questions are available on the ARRL
Certification and
Continuing Education home page
<http://www.arrl.org/cce> and the associated
C-CE links. To learn more, contact ARRL Certification
and Continuing
Education Coordinator Dan Miller, K3UFG, cce@arrl.org.