What’s new

Latest version 2.6.0. The app tells you when a new version is out and shows these notes after you update; run your plan's Setup to update in place.

Version 2.6.0 · 4 November 2026

• Organization licences: Professional for named people on one licence, a yearly licence or a lease for some months, paid by invoice. When your account is named on one, the app shows Professional with the organization's name and the end date, and the account menu says who manages it.
• For the person who manages an organization licence: Manage my organization's people in the account menu opens the page where you add and take off people; each new person gets the download by email.
• Two weeks before an organization licence ends, a bar above the page says so (and who to ask). If the licence ends, is switched off or you are taken off it, the app tells you plainly and falls back to your own plan, if you have one.
• The plans window has a line for teams, with a link to request a quote.

Version 2.5.0 · 2 November 2026

• The antenna link test becomes a visual test range (Professional). Pick each antenna — the new collinear omni, sector panel and log-periodic, or a dipole, monopole, Yagi, patch, horn, open-ended waveguide, dish, phased array or helix — and the weather, and watch the link in the new 3D range: rain falls, fog and clouds sit where they are, the link line takes the colour of its margin, and the line under the scene gives what the weather costs.
• Weather from the ITU-R Recommendations themselves, on every path: oxygen and water vapour by ITU-R P.676-13 (line by line, from the temperature, humidity and pressure), fog and clouds by ITU-R P.840-9, rain by ITU-R P.838-3 with the transmitter's polarization — each only on the part of the path inside it. Presets for clear sky, overcast, medium and thick fog, light to tropical rain, hot and humid, desert heat and cold air, or your own values; the dB/km of each at your frequency are shown.
• The link budget lists each weather loss with its dB/km and length; the coverage map, the range plot and the maximum range all include the weather.
• Ready-made test-range scenes: E-band backhaul in heavy rain, a 28 GHz sector to a home in fog, a Ka-band UAV link through clouds, a 60 GHz hop in hot humid air, a 12 GHz horn and log-periodic probe in the desert and a 5.8 GHz omni to a UAV. The 60 GHz backhaul scene now uses the P.676 oxygen model instead of a fixed 15 dB/km.
• Snow and sand/dust storms are listed but switched off until their IEEE models are added.
• The reference checks grow to 253.

Version 2.4.1 · 1 November 2026

• Rain fade in the link budget (Professional): Link budget with SNR margin ▸ SNR margin in rain. Enter the rain rate of your area (the rate exceeded 0.01 % of the year), the polarization and the availability you need; the app gives the rain fade by ITU-R P.838-3 and P.530-19, the margin left in rain and the availability your clear-sky margin buys — for example 99.997 %, about 14 minutes of outage a year — with a chart of rain fade against availability and the link's waterfall in rain.
• The Setup's link clip now shows the rain fade from this model.
• The reference checks grow to 241.

Version 2.4.0 · 1 November 2026

• Surface currents as in a full-wave tool (Professional, Antenna currents and fields ▸ Currents): the antenna's metal is a fine triangle mesh, the magnetic field H is computed at every vertex and the current density J = n̂ × H (A/m) colours it smoothly with a rainbow scale bar (linear or dB). Play animates the phase, Re{J·e^{jωt}} over one cycle, with cone arrows that follow the current. Wires, patches with their ground, horns and dishes; show the mesh, read |J| under the mouse, or show the conductor loss. On a computer whose graphics can't run this view, the app keeps the earlier 3D view.
• An account can be signed in on two computers at a time. Signing in on a third asks which one to sign out; your name ▸ Computers using this account… lists them, with the last time each connected, and signs one out.
• Student plan: the student price is confirmed once a year with a code sent to your university email. From 30 days before the date the app and an email remind you; Confirm now opens the one-minute check.
• A new Setup wizard: a step tracker from Welcome to Finish, and while it installs, short animated clips of what your edition does — currents flowing on an antenna, the wave leaving it, a beam steering, a link in the rain, matching on the Smith chart, constellations, radiation patterns and bands.
• Smoother: field and pattern calculations share the work across processor cores; bit error rate curves are computed without holding up the window; a page opens at once and draws its charts right after; switching the theme recolours only the page in view and the others when you next open them.
• The reference checks grow to 226.

Version 2.3.0 · 31 October 2026

• Frequency bands everywhere: every frequency field shows its band — the IEEE letter and the ITU band, for example “S · UHF” — and its tooltip lists every naming system, the wavelength and the allocations there.
• New tool, Frequency bands (every plan): ITU ELF … THF, IEEE HF … G (L, S, C, X, Ku, K, Ka, V, W), NATO / EU A … M and the waveguides WR-430 … WR-3.4 on one colourful chart, with the wavelength, what each band is used for and notable allocations (ISM, GNSS, FM, air-band, 5G FR1 / FR2, E-band, automotive radar). Click a band or the chart to jump there.
• Updates inside the app: when a new version is published the app says so at the top; “Update now” downloads the update for your edition, checks it and installs it — the app closes and opens again by itself, with the notes of what changed. Your name ▸ What's new… lists every version.
• The reference checks grow to 213.

Version 2.2.0

• Colourful levels everywhere: 3D patterns, coverage maps, currents and fields use a rainbow colour map as in CST and HFSS (Turbo, Jet, Viridis or a single colour under "Colours" in the sidebar, remembered). The x, y and z axes are red, green and blue in every 3D view.
• Every frequency field goes from 1 Hz to THz: type "100 kHz" or "0.3 THz", or choose the unit beside the number.
• Antenna currents and fields (J-surf): sharper, smoother current and field pictures drawn by the graphics card; a playback bar with play / pause, speed, and how long to run (continuously or for seconds, minutes or hours). Your own wire antennas: draw them wire by wire (or start from 14 shapes — folded dipole, loops, Yagi, helix, inverted-F, meander, spiral …), over ground or in free space, import / export NEC files and keep them in "My antennas". The antenna metal is any conductor from the materials.
• Materials & periodic table (every plan): all 118 elements coloured by group or conductivity, with a highlight under the mouse; alloys, platings and 37 dielectrics; conductivity, skin depth and surface resistance at your frequency; add your own materials. "Material…" beside every permittivity field fills in the value.
• RF system builder: a workspace like a schematic editor — drag parts from the library anywhere, draw wires between ports, side branches and couplers, an LO into a mixer's LO port; new parts (LO, DAC, ADC, limiter, frequency multiplier); your own parts in "My parts". Block frequencies in Hz … THz.
• The line-up is now a level diagram: signal and noise level through the chain, the room to compression of every block, which block sets the noise and which the distortion, and a plain-language summary of what limits the chain.
• Digital modulation & access lab (Professional): 37 modulations — OOK and 2 … 16-PAM; BPSK, π/2-BPSK, DBPSK, QPSK, OQPSK, π/4-QPSK, π/4-DQPSK, 8 / 16 / 32-PSK; 16 … 4096-QAM including the cross shapes 32 / 128 / 512 / 2048; 16 / 32 / 64-APSK; coherent and non-coherent 2 / 4 / 8-FSK, AFSK (Bell 202), MSK, GMSK and GFSK. Exact bit error rates (closed forms, or the noise integrated over every decision region), checked by simulation; constellations with Gray labels and decision regions, waveforms, eye diagrams, spectra, a BER chart to compare any of them and the bandwidth-against-power plane with Shannon's limit; every modulation side by side in one table.
• Multiple access: FDMA, TDMA, CDMA (Walsh and long codes, processing gain, near-far), frequency hopping, OFDM, OFDMA, SC-FDMA and NOMA, each with its picture and a simulation; analog AM, DSB, SSB, FM and PM with Bessel sidebands and Carson's rule.
• Modulation test bench: 16 modulations (BPSK … 4096-QAM, 8-PSK, APSK) and two new signals, LTE uplink SC-FDMA and DS-CDMA at the chip rate.
• The reference checks grow to 205.

Version 2.1.0

• Temperature zones in the RF system builder: "+ Temperature zone" places a see-through box with coloured edges on the schematic. Drag its sides over the section you want (for example a hot PA at 70 °C while the rest of the chain stays at 25 °C, or an outdoor mast head at -20 °C); every block inside works at the zone's temperature instead of the ambient — from below freezing to hot. Gain, noise figure, compression, cable and filter drift, and the noise of lossy parts all follow it, and so do the EIRP, the beam coverage and the instruments.
• A zone without a temperature is drawn dashed red and tells you to enter one; until you do, it works at room temperature, 25 °C (77 °F).
• The Thermal view sweeps the ambient (zones keep theirs) or any one zone alone from -40 to +125 °C, and shows the EIRP for a chain that ends in an antenna. The line-up shows each zone as a coloured band and each block's temperature. Zones are saved with the system.
• The reference checks grow to 161.

Version 2.0.0

• Unit converters for every plan (Converters group): a temperature converter (°C, °F, K, °R) and a unit converter for 37 physical quantities — length, mass, pressure, power (W, dBm), energy, speed, fuel economy and more — in SI, metric and imperial units, with a one-click metric / imperial switch.
• RF system builder (Professional; Link lab group): build any RF chain from symbols — signal generator or receive antenna, amplifiers, attenuators, cables, filters, switches, isolators, couplers, splitters, phase shifters, mixers, Touchstone (.s2p) blocks, a 50-ohm load, an antenna or a phased array. Give every part its manufacturer, part number and datasheet values.
• It computes the line-up (signal, noise, compression, gain, noise figure, OIP3 / IIP3, P1dB, SNR, MDS, SFDR, DC power and heat), the frequency response with the mismatch between the parts, the test signal through the chain (CW, two tones or 5G NR / LTE / QAM), the EIRP, beam and coverage of the antenna end, and how everything drifts from -40 to +85 °C (in °C or °F).
• Virtual instruments anywhere in the chain — spectrum analyser, power meter, network analyser, oscilloscope, noise-figure meter — show what they would read; load your own readings (CSV trace, .s2p, a typed value) to compare. Save and open systems (.rfsys); export the line-up, the cascade .s2p, the frequency response, the temperature sweep or a report.
• Antenna currents and fields (J-surf) (Professional; Radiation & fields group): the surface current on dipoles, monopoles, Yagis, loops, helices, patches, horns, dishes and phased arrays (dipoles with mutual coupling, or patches), and the E and H fields around them on a cut plane — peak or instantaneous, linear or dB, animated over one RF cycle so the current flows and the waves travel. Also the gain pattern, the input or active impedance, the loss density (heating) and the drift with the ambient temperature (°C / °F) or with a gradient across an array. Export the currents, the fields, the pattern and the sweep as CSV.
• The reference checks grow to 158.

Version 1.9.0

• Two-tone IMD test bench (Professional; Noise, gain & linearity group): choose the intermodulation orders to test, from IM2 and IM3 up to IM11, and get each order's IIPn / OIPn, slope and level below the tones.
• Simulate a device from its gain, OIP3 and OIP2, or give every order its own intercept point. Or type in (or paste from Excel) your spectrum-analyser readings: the bench fits the intercepts and the slopes for you.
• Five views: the spectrum around the tones or across every harmonic zone, a 3D sweep that stacks the spectrum at every drive step (drag to rotate), Pout vs Pin with the intercept lines, a map of every mixing product and the two-tone waveform. "Play sweep" drives the test from small signal into compression and every view follows.
• Modulation test bench (Professional; same group): drive the amplifier with single-carrier QAM (QPSK … 1024-QAM), 5G NR or LTE OFDM (with optional crest-factor reduction), two carriers, or your own I/Q file (CSV/TXT).
• It measures ACLR and spectral regrowth, EVM with the constellation, CCDF and PAPR, AM-AM and AM-PM, sweeps the drive into compression and finds the highest output power that meets your limits (3GPP TS 38.104 values by default: ACLR 45 dB, EVM 17.5 / 12.5 / 8 / 3.5 / 2.5 %).
• Seven views: spectrum, a 3D waterfall of the spectral regrowth, ACLR / EVM / gain against power, constellation, CCDF, AM-AM / AM-PM and the envelope.
• The reference checks grow to 133.

Version 1.8.1

• Help: write to support@mmwaveapp.com. The address is in the sign-in window, in Account > Contact support and in the About box.
• The plans window shows prices in Swiss francs (CHF).
• Refunds: the 14-day free trial is the time to test. After payment we refund only billing mistakes, a yearly renewal you forgot to cancel (within 14 days) or an app that won't run on your PC and that support can't fix within 14 days. Write to support@mmwaveapp.com.

Version 1.8

• New name: Antenna Calculator is now mmWave Calculator (mmwave.app). Your account, settings and plan stay as they are; installing 1.8 over an earlier version replaces its shortcuts with mmWave Calculator ones.

Version 1.7.1

• Account menu > About and legal notices: version, links to the Terms of Use and the Privacy Policy, the textbooks the formulas are cited from, and the third-party names and licenses.
• The Setup's license agreement now refers to the Terms of Use and says that the app signs in to verify.mmwave.app.

Version 1.7

• Free trial: a new account gets the Student plan's 30 calculators free for 14 days, no card needed. The Standard and Professional calculators are visible with a lock. The top of the window shows how many days are left, the first start of each day says so too, and now and then a window shows the three plans (close it to keep going). When the trial ends, the calculators lock until you choose a plan. One trial per person and per computer.
• Send feedback (Account menu) opens the feedback form on mmwave.app.

Version 1.6.1

• Link lab map: now a compass view seen from above. North is up, the antenna chosen under "Centre" sits in the middle, rings give the distance from it and the numbers round the edge the bearing (90 = East, 180 = South, 270 = West). Each antenna is drawn as what it is — a mast, a UAV or a user's device — with its name, height, distance and bearing. Choose the drawing under "Shown as" on its card, or leave it on Auto.

Version 1.6

• Every calculator checked against Balanis, "Antenna Theory" (4th ed.) and Proakis & Salehi, "Digital Communications" (5th ed.), with their worked examples added to the self-test. Directivity from beamwidths now uses Kraus' 41 253/(theta*phi) (the course's 40 000 is still shown), plus Tai & Pereira and the omnidirectional formulas.
• More detail from the books: realized gain, the polarization ellipse (axial ratio, tilt, sense), VSWR bandwidth, the full Friis equation with mismatch and polarization, monopole / short dipole / any dipole length, bistatic radar, dish efficiency from the feed pattern and f/D, G/T at the receiver input, sensitivity and C/N0 from bit rate and Eb/N0.
• New: rectangular microstrip patch design (Standard and Professional) and digital-modulation bit error rates with the Shannon limit (Professional).
• The complete Smith chart: graded grid, wavelength and angle scales and the radially scaled parameters, as on the printed chart.
• Every plot explains its axes ("?" button), and "Enlarge" opens any view in a large window that can be saved as PNG, SVG or PDF.

Version 1.5

• Sign in with your mmWave Calculator account (email and password). New accounts are confirmed with a code sent to your email. Forgot the password? "Forgot your password?" emails you a code to set a new one.
• Student, Standard and Professional editions, with a plan badge at the top left (gold for Professional, silver for Standard).
• Calculators outside your plan show a lock and what they would add.

Version 1.4.1

• A proper setup wizard: welcome, license agreement, choice of shortcuts and install folder, a progress bar with percentage, and a finish page that can start the app. No command window any more.
• Updates install over the existing version; Setup closes the app if it is open. The app appears in Settings > Apps with its icon, version and size.
• The build tools can be kept (default) so that later updates take 1-2 minutes instead of about 5.

Version 1.4

• New plot engine: PyQtGraph for 2D and OpenGL (graphics card) for 3D. Mouse wheel zooms, drag pans, double-click resets — on every plot.
• Link lab number fields show exactly what you type, accept expressions and units ("5.8 GHz"), and turn red when a value is out of range.
• The link lab's maths runs in the background and is about 10x quicker.

Version 1.3

• Link lab: two or more antennas of different types (dipole, monopole, Yagi, patch, horn / waveguide, dish, phased array, helix, custom) with polarization, power, position and pointing; SISO, MIMO, mesh or point-to-multipoint; solve for received power, Tx power needed or maximum range; map, 3D scene, budget, range, capacity and coverage plots.

Version 1.2

• 17 microwave and RF-system calculators after Pozar, Microwave Engineering: lines and waveguides, impedance matching, noise / gain / linearity, receivers and link budgets.