Antenna Questions and Job

What is the difference between Directivity and Antenna Gain?
What are Maxwell's Equations?

What are the main types of antenna polarization?
What is the impedance of a dipole antenna?
What is VSWR?
What is Friis Transmission formula?
What are the far field conditions for an antenna?
What is the relationship between the speed of light, frequency
and wavelength?
What is the size of a half-wavelength antenna at 900 MHz (or
any other frequency)?
What is a balun?
What does an efficiency of -10 dB mean? What is 1 mW in
dBm? If you double the power of 1 mW, what is that in dBm? In
dB?
Intermediate Questions
What is the bandwidth (in %) for a dipole antenna, patch
antenna, and slot antenna? What are the polarizations of each
antenna?
Explain why a slot antenna radiates, including the effect of
feeding position on the impedance.
Explain why a patch antenna radiates.
What is the difference between a loop antenna and a folded
dipole antenna?
Show me how to impedance match (with lumped components)
an impedance I marked on the Smith Chart.
The response of a dual band antenna is drawn on the Smith
Chart. Discuss how you would impedance match both bands.
Explain as many different baluns as you can, describing why
each works.
What is a quarter-wavelength transformer?
Harder Questions
How can you design a patch antenna to be circularly polarized?
Explain why your method works, physically.
Industry Specific - Consumer Electronics
What is the diference between TRP and EIRP?
What is SAR? What is the FCC limit on SAR? How can you
improve the SAR?
What is desense?
If the radio has a conducted transmit power of 20 dBm, and the
antenna efficiency is -3 dB, what is the TRP? If the result is not
what you expect, what effect is responsible for that?
If the TIS is not what you expect, and it is not the conducted
sensitivity or load pull, what could be the reason?
Industry Specific - Defense Department Jobs
What is RCS (radar cross section)? What shapes and materials
are good or bad for RCS?
Industry Specific - University
Discuss your previous research. Why is it important? Why were
you interested in that topic?
What research are you looking to do in the future?
What funding sources have you had and are looking for in the
future?
Finally, whatever you do, make sure you are excited about the
interview. You must also show passion. Make sure you show
that you want the job and like (or better yet, love) what you do.
This is one area that can make or break a hiring decision.
Supposing that you like the field of antennas and electromagnetics so much that you
would consider doing it for a career, what types of opportunities are available?
Surprisingly, there are a good number of careers in antenna engineer, and some pay
pretty well. I will outline the 3 main sectors of antenna jobs:
1. Private-Sector Antenna Jobs
Consumer electronics companies (Research in Motion, Apple, Samsung, HP, etc) hire
antenna engineers to assist in developing their products. The antenna engineers are
responsible for these areas:
 antenna design (including working with product development teams to define

appropriate antenna volumes, geometry, impedance matching etc)
 integration (ensuring the antenna continues to radiate as the product goes from
prototype to production stage, ensuring antenna is manufacturable)
 product testing (which includes defining minimum acceptance levels and ensuring
product quality, setting VSWR specs, etc)
 failure analysis (determining why failed or returned products fail and how this can
be corrected).
These jobs tend to be higher paying, but have longer hours and tighter deadlines.
2. Defense Department or Government Jobs
A big area for antenna engineers is working on defense programs, particularly in the
United States. I classify these as government jobs because the customer is the
government, and they essentially set the rules and overall tone for the companies.
These jobs are less concerned with manufacturability and antenna design, and more
focused on research and integration. Antenna engineers at defense companies tend to
write a lot of code for antenna or general electromagnetic analysis.
Antenna systems on defense aircraft are to work over frequency ranges from "D.C. to
daylight", which for practical purposes is something like 3 MHz - 40 GHz. As such,
antenna systems on defense aircraft are typically very complex, often with upwards of
a hundred antennas on a single aircraft. Antenna engineers in this world struggle with
antenna to antenna coupling, field of view requirements, making radomes so antennas
are more aerodynamic, etc.
3. Research (University) Jobs
These careers are all about publishing in the journal IEEE Transactions on Antennas
and Propagation. The positions can be as a professor or as a full-time researcher.
Thse jobs are almost exclusively in the University world, but some National Labs also
have research positions where the primary goal is to publish.
Some active areas of research include:
 Meta-Material Antennas
 Electromagnetic Solver Development (FDTD, MoM, FEM, etc.)
 Experimental Areas such as "cloaking"
 Antenna Miniaturization
 Antenna Array Optimization (weights, positions, etc)
 SAR reduction for mobile phone antennas
 Broadband Antennas
Obtaining these positions is all about publishing. A Ph.D. is a necessity, and the more
conference and journal publications you have the more likely you are to land a
position here. These jobs typicaly involve some amount of teaching responsibility,
student mentorship, and a fair amount of grant or proposal writing to obtain funding
for your research.
For more information, see the links on available antenna positions and antenna
engineer salarie
1.The basic requirements of transmitting antennas are
The basic requirements of a transmitting antenna are high gain and efficiency while
requirements of receiving antennas are low side lobes and large signal to noise to ratio.

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What is the difference between Directivity and Antenna Gain?

What are Maxwell's Equations?

1. Private-Sector Antenna Jobs

 antenna design (including working with product development teams to define

2. Defense Department or Government Jobs

3. Research (University) Jobs

Some active areas of research include:

1.The basic requirements of transmitting antennas are

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