An in-situ method to measure the radiation pattern of a GPS receiving antenna

This paper describes an inexpensive and simple alternative method to measur e the radiation pattern of a 1,575.42 MHz global positioning system (GPS) r eceiving antenna, The results are compared with those derived from simulati ons and measurements using the extrapolation method. The agreement between the different techniques is acceptably good. Our method does not require th e antenna to be taken out of operation, allowing in-situ. measurements. Hen ce, it provides a means to measure the radiation pattern under real operati ng conditions and using only a GPS receiver connected to a personal compute r (PC) to collect data.