Multioctave turnstile antenna for direction finding and polarization determination

A multioctave, multifunction antenna system including three planar terraces each having four symetrically placed individual turnstile arrays. A first terrace includes turnstile arrays of a first relatively large size, the second terrace is axially spaced therefrom and includes four second individual turnstile arrays of a second size smaller than the first size. A third terrace includes a similar arrangement of four individual turnstile arrays of a third and smallest size. A ground plane for the arrays of the second and third terraces is included in the plane of the next larger arrays, the first terrace having a spaced ground plane in a separate plane. Between the planes of each terrace an absorbing material provides a lossy medium for broadbanding and reduction of the interaction among the arrays of any given terrace with those of the other terraces. The elements or lobes of each dipole of each turnstile is arranged for separate feed, permitting maximum flexibility in respect to the overall mode of operation, i.e., such as for polarization determination, monopulse, etc.