Patent ID: 7843398

Claim:
A method, comprising: coupling a first antenna element to a second antenna element to form a tapered slot antenna pair of the antenna elements, where the first and second antenna elements each have respective input edges, lateral edges and curvature edges and where the first and second antenna elements including the respective edges are spaced apart from one another by at least a gap height, and having feed ends along the respective input edges and launch ends along the respective curvature edges; electrically coupling a first end cap to the first antenna element; electrically coupling a second end cap to the second antenna element, the first and second end caps having an open plate configuration and electrically isolated from one another; and configuring the center lateral axis of the first and second end caps along the respective lateral edges only between the feed ends and launch ends so that the end caps extend equidistantly in a plane parallel to and extending over each side edge of the respective antenna elements to provide induction-canceling, capacitive coupling when operating at frequencies below a theoretical cutoff frequency, the open plate configuration creating the capacitive coupling.