The Hoverman antenna was invented in the 1950s by Doyt Hoverman before the advent of

computer modeling, and appears to be a variation for UHF of the much earlier Chireix-
Mesny shortwave antenna. In late 2007 and through much of 2008 the Hoverman antenna
was subjected to computer modeling and a number of improvements were made by a small
group of antenna enthusiasts on the digitalhome.ca forums. The resulting design was
dubbed the ``Gray-Hoverman'' antenna. You can read more about the history of this design
on their web page.

The models presented below are my second revision (``rev-2'') to

Contents
first (GH6) and second generation (GH10) digitalhome
Hoverman designs (represented as ``rev-0'' in the plots). The Performance Predictions
GH6 utilizes 6 pairs of half-wave reflectors, while the GH10 has Specifications
10 pairs of half-wave reflectors. Schematics of the rev-1 NEC-2 Files
versions of these antennas are shown below. Also included are Monte-Carlo Simulations
A Narrow-Band Hoverman
designs for 4 and 8 pair models, as well as a narrow and wide-
A Wide-Band Hoverman
band version of this antenna.
 Performance Predictions

The following plots show the net gain (corrected for the SWR effects), front-to-back ratio,
and the SWR across the post-February 2009 UHF band for the antenna geometries
described below. In all these plots, the (rev-2) designs presented here are represented by the
solid curves, while the dashed curves denote those of the original (rev-0) models described
on the Gray-Hoverman web page and its forums. The rev-2 designs are a modest (about 1
dB) improvement to my earlier rev-1 versions.

The above plot shows that original digital-home GH10 design performs about a dB better
than the GH10 design presented here across the middle of the UHF band, but performs
significantly worse on the upper end of the band. The reason for poor performance away
from the middle of the band can be seen in the following plot of the SWR plot.
As the following plot shows, the original GH6 model has a very good F/B ratio in the
middle of the band, and is much better than the second generation GH10 across the entire
band.
 Specifications

The geometric parameters of the GH6 and GH10 were found by the optimization process
outlined on the Antenna Overview page. Each antenna consists of two parts: a driven
element formed by a zigzag pair, and a reflector made up of a varying number of horizontal
parasitic elements.

The figures and tables provided below give the detailed geometric information about the
antennas. The measurements have been rounded to the nearest 16th of an inch, as well as to
the nearest mm. Each of the tables contains a ``D'' parameter, which represents the diameter
of the wire to be used. In addition, the tables for the zigzag driven element contains a `` Δx''
entry that represents the spacing between the driven element and the reflector. The `` Δz''
values that appear in the reflector geometry tables represent distances between adjacent
reflector rods. For example, z2 = z1 + Δz1. (The symbol Δ is commonly used in
mathematics to signify a difference between two values. In this case Δz1 = z2 - z1.) All
distance values appearing in the tables refer to the centers of the corresponding elements.

The feedpoint, denoted by the orange segment connecting the zigzag pairs, has a 300 ohm
impedance. As such, a 300 ohm matching transformer will be required to connect this to
standard 75 ohm cable (RG-6).

GH4 Parameters
GH6 Parameters
GH8 Parameters
GH10 Parameters
 NEC-2 Files

In this section, links are provided to the NEC-2 files for the above designs. These files
require a version of NEC-2 that is able to read geometry lines that consist of more than 80
bytes. Standard versions of NEC-2 are not able to do this and may produce a geometry card
error when used with these files. I use a version of nec2dx that I modified to read geometry
cards up to 256 characters in length.

NEC-2 file for the rev-2 GH4

NEC-2 file for the rev-2 GH6

NEC-2 file for the rev-2 GH8

NEC-2 file for the rev-2 GH10

Monte-Carlo Simulations

To what tolerances must one build the antennas to achieve the predicted gains? Stated
another way, how robust are the antennas to construction errors? In order to shed some light
on this question, I simulated 500 random (rev-1) GH6 antenna geometries where each
differed from the recommended geometry by a random amount. In particular, each
dimension X was perturbed by a uniform random value between -1/8 and +1/8 of an inch.
The resulting distribution of net-gains, SWRs, and F/B ratios are given in the plots below.
In each of the plots, the solid blue line represents the mean value observed. The error bar
gives the standard deviation from the mean, and the shaded region delineates the minimum
and maximum values observed. As the plots show, the antenna appears to be quite tolerant
of construction errors on the order of plus or minus 1/8 of an inch (3 mm).
 A Narrow-Band Hoverman

As the above plots of the net gain show, the Hoverman antenna has a very wide bandwidth
making it an appealing UHF antenna. On the other hand, it is possible to optimize the
Hoverman antenna for a particular frequency. The 6-pair reflector design presented below
was optimized for the maximum net gain at 575 MHz, where modeling indicates that it has
a respectable net gain of more than 16 dBi. As this design has a much narrower bandwidth,
it should only be used for fringe reception of a few channels near its design frequency.

I have had a number of requests for this antenna for use at other frequencies. If you
want to adapt this design for use at a frequency other than 575 MHz, then simply
scale the geometric measurements in the tables below by 575 MHz divided by the
desired frequency. For example, to use the antenna at 525 MHz, multiply all the
measurements by 575/525 = 1.095. In this case, a value such as 300mm in the table
would become 329mm, or 12 and 15/16 inches. This scaling applies to all the numbers.

The plots below compare the predicted performance of the narrow-band GH6 to that of the
second generation GH10 from the digital home site. Also shown for comparison is the
predicted performance of the Extended Hoverman, which was optimized for 615 MHz. The
shaded area corresponds to the frequency range where the SWR of the narrow-band design
is less than two.
Here are the geometric values for the narrow band GH6. For values at other frequences, use
the scaling rule described above.
A Wide-Band Hoverman
The above geometries were designed for the post-February 2009 UHF band, which has a
frequency range of 470-698 MHz. This section contains the design parameters for a 6-pair
reflector model that spans the broader frequency range of 470 MHz to 794 MHz.
NEC-2 file for the Wide Band Variant