The Parabolic Reflector Antenna (Satellite Dish) - Radiation Patterns

In this section, the 3d radiation patterns are presented to give an idea of what they look like. This example will be for a parabolic dish reflector with the diameter of the dish D equal to 11 wavelengths. The F/D ratio will be 0.5. A circular horn antenna will be used as the feed. The maximum antenna gain from the physical aperture is ; the actual gain is 29.3 dB = 851, so we can conclude that the overall efficiency is 77%. The 3D patterns are shown in the following figures. As can be seen, the pattern is highly directional. The HPBW is approximately 5 degrees, and the front-to-back ratio is approximately 33 dB. Video Overview of Parabolic Reflector Antennas If you prefer to listen to an intro on parabolic reflector antennas, here is a video discussing some of the major points: