. Although the radiation of an omnidirectional antenna is symmetrical in azimuthal directions, it may vary in a complicated way with elevation angle, having
lobes and
nulls at different angles. The most common omnidirectional antenna designs are the
monopole antenna, consisting of a vertical rod conductor mounted over a conducting
ground plane, and vertical
dipole antenna, consisting of two collinear vertical rods. The
quarter-wave monopole and
half-wave dipole both have vertical
radiation patterns consisting of a single broad lobe with maximum radiation in horizontal directions, so they are popular. The quarter-wave monopole, the most compact resonant antenna, may be the most widely used antenna in the world. The five-eighth wave monopole – length or of a wavelength – is also popular, since at that length monopoles direct the greatest proportion of their radiated power horizontally, hence the best use of transmit power for long-distance communication. Common types of low-gain omnidirectional antennas are the
whip antenna,
"Rubber Ducky" antenna,
ground plane antenna, vertically oriented
dipole antenna,
discone antenna,
mast radiator, horizontal
loop antenna (sometimes known colloquially as a 'circular aerial' because of the shape) and the
halo antenna. Higher-gain omnidirectional antennas can also be built. "Higher gain" in this case means that the antenna radiates less energy at higher and lower elevation angles and more in the horizontal directions. High-gain omnidirectional antennas are generally realized using
collinear dipole arrays. These consist of multiple
half-wave dipoles mounted
collinearly (in a line), fed in phase. • The coaxial collinear (COCO) antenna uses transposed coaxial sections to produce in-phase half-wavelength radiators. • A
Franklin array uses short U-shaped half-wavelength sections whose radiation cancels in the far-field to bring each half-wavelength dipole section into equal phase. • Another type is the omnidirectional
microstrip antenna (OMA). ==Analysis==