Japan’s Dai Ichi Scientist

ust about every ham has at least heard of a Yagi antenna, and many of us use one or more. In the event that you’re not familiar, it’s a multi-element parasitic beam antenna. No risk of infection here … “parasitic” in this sense means that only one element (the driven element) is directly fed with RF energy, and the parasitic elements — the reflector and one or more directors — help focus the signal into a specific pattern in a particular direction without being directly energized. The Yagi — more precisely called the Yagi-Uda antenna, was developed in 1926 by a pair of Japanese scientists, Hidetsugu Yagi and Shintaro Uda. In 1948, published a profile of Professor Yagi (with his first name translated at the time to Hideji), along with the experience of a ham who was a member of the U.S. occupation forces checking out one of his own antenna designs with the master. Antennas Editor WA5VJB discusses this article and more in his column this month.