Slide 5 of 19
Notes:
It is straightforward to configure the Spitfire as a full 4-quadrant system. Two more
parasitic wings are added perpendicular to the two which were shown earlier.
The system operates with two of the four parasitics wires active at one time.
The remaining two wires, off to the sides, are detuned by grounding them so that they do
not couple into the system. (It was determined through computer modeling that trying to
make use of all four parasitic elements at a time did not improve upon using just the
two). The tower is always active as the driven element. To beam in direction 1, element 1
is configured as a director and element 2 as a reflector. Elements 3 and 4 are grounded.
To switch to direction 3, elements 1 and 2 would be grounded, and elements 3 and 4 are
ungrounded with number 3 being the director and 4 the reflector. In this manner, the four
switching directions shown in the figure can be provided. The entire array fits in the
same real estate as occupied by the quarter wave radials under the tower.