NEC-TIE

NEC Tools for Import & Export by Paul McMahon VK3DIP

I started building NEC-TIE as a tool to trial import from various antenna description file formats to YagiCAD. The intent was just to save the tedium and possible errors of manual transcription from things like the yagi description files included with the ARRL antenna handbook. Anyway it soon got bigger than that and while I have now included NEC-TIE in the YagiCAD distribution, (it’s installed just as an exe in the normal YagiCAD directory but it can be anywhere, conversely if there is a later version here you can just copy it over the top of the old version) the thought was it may be useful to people standalone or in conjunction with other computer antenna programs. So here it is.

Nominal capabilities

· Import .NEC files, either standard NEC2 or 4NEC2 extensions. (See known limitations)

· Import .YW and .YAG (YO) files.

· Import .ANT (MN and AO extensions) files . (See known limitations)

· View/Edit data for wires, loads, sources, and grounds

· View data Geometry in a graphical 3d viewer

· Convert data to an equivalent monotaper Yagi (See known limitations)

· Export to YagiCAD .YC6 format

· Export to standard NEC2 format

· Run data against a native double precision port of MiniNEC3

· View MiniNEC far field results as a graphical pattern plot.

Known Limitations

· Early days, version 1 of software there will be bugs, if you find any please let me know.

· For .NEC files currently no support of GA,GF,GH,GM,GR,GX,SP,SM cards. The imports will try to ignore these but sometimes ( eg. if there is a load that references a wire defined in a GH) this will show up as an error.

· Also currently only EX type 0.

· In AO style .ant files no support for rotate command.

· Editors biased towards what YagiCAD/MiniNEC can support.

· For conversion to monotaper or for export to YagiCAD format the design must have:

o All wires parallel (can be X or Y axis aligned, but will end up Y)

o Symmetry about either the X or Y axis

o All wires at same height (Z)

o A single source

· Export to standard NEC2 format, see above file limitations.

Files.

Initial released version 1.03 of NEC-TIE exe (Zipped)

Version 1.1.01 of NEC-TIE exe (Zipped)

V1.1.0.1 Release notes

· Multiple bug fixes.

· Added all NEC style loads to included MiniNEC ie. LD0 to LD5 which includes converted 4nec2 LD6 and LD7

· Loads and load comments now saved to exported .nec files

New version 1.5.01 of NEC-TIE exe (Zipped)

V1.5.0.1 Release notes

· Multiple bug fixes/Including Mininec Load handling/Rearranged main screen.

· Added EZNEC file import capability