What is a folded dipole antenna?

A folded dipole antenna consists of a basic half-wave dipole with a second parallel wire running alongside it. The ends of the two wires are connected together, forming a continuous loop, while the feed point remains in the center of one of the parallel wires. This design essentially creates a short-circuited loop that is a half-wavelength long. The primary advantages of a folded dipole over a standard dipole are a quadrupled feed point impedance (typically around 300 ohms) and a slightly wider operational bandwidth. Distractors describing elements folded down by 90 degrees or shortened to a quarter-wavelength describe entirely different antenna configurations, such as inverted-Vs or physically shortened loaded dipoles, which lack the parallel wire loop.