The study of dipole arrays in Chapters 3 through 6 has proceeded from simpler to more complicated configurations. In Chapters 3 and 4 all elements are physically alike and arranged to be parallel with their centers uniformly spaced around a circle so that when driven in suitable phase sequences all elements are geometrically and electrically identical. Chapter 5 is also concerned with parallel elements that are structurally alike, but they lie in a curtain with their centers along a straight line of finite length; consequently the electromagnetic environments of the several elements are not all the same. In Chapter 6 the requirement that the elements in a curtain array be equal in length is omitted and consideration is given first to arrays of elements that differ only moderately in length, then to arrays in which not only the lengths but also the radii of the elements and the distances between them vary widely. The lifting of each restriction introduces additional complications in the approximate representation of the currents on the elements by simple trigonometric functions and in the reduction of the integrals in the simultaneous integral equations to sums of such functions with suitably defined complex coefficients.

The final generalization, which is carried out in this chapter, is the omission of the requirement maintained throughout the book until this point, that all elements be non-staggered.