Everyone can have some fun with the 6th annual “Antenna Design Competition” , pick up your competition components kit from the CTSC 2026 registration desk during day one of the conference. Try your hand at building a functional TSCM antenna which is suitable to be judged for its unique and functional ability to capture typical hostile radio-frequency energy.
Each antenna component kit contains several essential items that can be utilized to create your own unique antenna design. The antenna design may be Omni-directional, directional, or other antenna types such as a wave guide antenna!
Some manufacturers and technical operators insist that multiple switched antenna arrays are required while others recommend expensive antenna systems that are specifically designed for high-power transmit applications. Neither are ideally matched for localized, receive only TSCM oriented applications. Often a simple antenna can provide outstanding results across the anticipated hardware range and for specific channelized reception.
Our Technical Research and Standards Group has examined and tested a significant number of popular, exotic and specialized TSCM antenna systems, against the simplest of antenna designs, during deployment in real-world field environments; against a wide range of low powered emitters across a wide frequency range, common to Technical Surveillance Devices (TSD).
Antenna qualifying performance will be tested against low-power emitter targets in the VHF Band (30 MHz to 300 MHz) and within the UHF Band (300 MHz to 3 GHz) as a base qualifying criteria.
Additional bonus points are given for signal detection in the SHF Band (3 GHZ to 30 GHz) to round out the evaluation of the antenna design submitted.
Participants are free to utilize any design, provided the base leg of the antenna element is at least 1/2 to 3/4 inches in length to accommodate connection requirements to the test radio, via 50 ohm termination.
The finished antenna design must be turned in at the CTSC 2026 registration table by noon of the 2nd day of the conference, with the winner to be announced during the Dinner and Awards event that evening.
The bragging rights, peer recognition, and an award certificate will be presented to the participant with the highest number of points achieved with the evaluation criteria and testing of the antenna.