Planar serpentine antennas

A planar serpentine antenna comprising:

• a substantially planar carrier layer,
• a substantially planar radiator of a preselected length secured to said carrier layer, said radiator extending in a substantially serpentine pattern and having a feed end and an open end, said radiator having a series of change of direction points along the length thereof with each said change of direction point forming an electric discontinuity to provide more than one connected radiator section along the length of said radiator, said radiator providing at least two different resonant frequencies, said radiator sections being arranged so that at least two of said sections are connected to one another and are arranged substantially perpendicular to one another to radiate energy in an omnidirectional pattern and so that the currents in alignment with the E vector are those corresponding to horizontal and vertical polarizations, and
• a pair of substantially planar ground conductors of a preselected length secured to said carrier layer for optimizing the impedance match between a connecting cable and said radiator, said pair of ground conductors being arranged in spaced relation to the outer periphery of said radiator, said ground conductors extending in opposite directions away from one another and having turns to form adjacent, parallel spaced end sections arranged for connecting to an electric connector portion, said pair of ground conductors being coplanar and do not extend outside the coplanar plane, there being an outer group of three radiator sections connected at two right angle turns and there being a succession of three inside groups, disposed within said outer group, said three inside groups being of a corresponding shape and being successively smaller toward the center of said carrier layer, each said inside group having a back fold, right angle turn, and back fold together with an end portion of three successive back folds and an end section.