Applications For Standard Gain Horns with Coaxial Adapters & Integrated Cage Style Mounts

Standard gain horn waveguide antennas are used as precision test apparatus and high gain/directional antennas for a wide range of applications from satellite communications, test and measurement, radar, backhaul, and many others. The high directionality and gain demonstrated by standard gain horns is directly a product of the waveguide construction, which can result in challenges when selecting interconnects and mounting for these precision antennas. One solution is to use waveguide-to-coaxial adapters at the base of the waveguide antenna, and another is to use cage-style standard gain horn antenna mounts. Examples of this include:

Waveguide-to-coaxial adapters enable standard waveguide interconnect to waveguide antennas with the trade-off that the waveguide interconnect exhibits higher insertion loss and lower power handling than would comparable waveguide interconnect. However, being able to use coaxial interconnect from the base of the standard gain horn allows for a much more flexible and lower profile interconnect that is typically easier to route in systems or while assembling a test setup. As a standard gain horn has a minimum and maximum frequency that may not match perfectly with the coaxial connector type chosen as the adapter, it is important to consult the datasheet for the waveguide-to-coaxial adapter to understand the limits of the adapter and potential use with the standard gain horn antenna.

Mounting standard gain horns can be challenging given the limited space and structure available to attach a fixture. Standard Gain Horn Antenna Mounts, such as cage-style mounts, address this challenge by providing a fixture that uses the waveguide flange as a mounting system for the waveguide and an external structure that provides easy access to several mounting configurations. With cage-style mounts the waveguide antenna can be rotated freely for proper polarity alignment. Some cage-style mounts for these antennas have pre-drilled hole patterns to fit common types of equipment mounts. Moreover, cage-style mounts in particular also aid to provide some degree of protection to the standard gain horn and any possible adapters and interconnect mounted to the back of the antenna.