Antenna Design Program
For Ham Radio

This is my review of the EZNEC v5.0 antenna design program.

The "demo version" of the software is fully functional and more than adequate for most ham radio antenna design needs. Oh! And it's free! ;-)

Once you get familiar with all the capabilities and features of the demo version, you will have acquired the know-how to design more complex antennas.

In fact, EZNEC v5.0 is so powerful that you can design complete antenna systems consisting of...

• the antenna,
• it's transmission line
• and even the impedance transformer ("antenna tuner"), if required.

A picture is worth a thousand words. But a video is worth a thousand pictures.

Therefore, I produced a video demo (see below) to introduce you to the EZNEC v5.0 free demo version.

In the video demo, I use the program to design a 20 meter dipole which is to be installed 30 feet above ground.

The video will take you through the basic steps.

1. Initial setup of antenna and environment parameters.
2. Basic experimentation.

The documentation is very complete and well written. It is in the form of Windows help files. The contents are very well structured and easy to navigate.

You can follow the help as if it were a tutorial in antenna design. You can also skip and jump to specific sub-topics using the detailed table of contents.

Now. On with the show ... Lights! Camera! Action!

Please note that the video may take a some time to load
if you do not have a broadband Internet access.
I have had to limit the resolution to limit the size of the file...
which explains why the final video is "a little fuzzy".

The "paid" versions of EZNEC v5.0 enable you to design more complex antenna systems that require subdividing the antenna into more than 20 segments (the limit of the demo version).

But, again, the free demo version is fully functional and will be more than adequate to design the antenna types that ham radio operators favor the most.

In short, the free demo version of the EZNEC v5.0 antenna design program is an amazing value for its ridiculously low price! :-)

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