100 Years of the Yagi: Contest University Marks a Milestone Antenna Design

Some pieces of amateur radio kit never really go out of fashion, and the Yagi-Uda beam antenna is Exhibit A. This year marks its 100th anniversary, having first been invented back in 1926, and Contest University (CTU) chose to celebrate the milestone with a dedicated live webinar.

The free session, titled "The Yagi Turns 100," ran as a live Zoom webinar on Saturday 19th September 2026 at 1600 UTC (noon Eastern). There was no pre-registration required — viewers simply clicked the link at w3lif.org/yagi ahead of the start time to join. Questions posted in the chat during the presentation were collected and relayed to the presenter once the talk wrapped up.

If you missed it live, there's still good news: the session was recorded, and CTU plan to post the recording link on the Contest University website in the coming week — well worth a watch for anyone with even a passing interest in the antenna design that's quietly underpinned a century of DX chasing and contesting.

A century on, and the Yagi's still the reference point most of us end up pointing at the sky.