How can I tell if an antenna is a dipole antenna

Question

Background

I'm trying to select an antenna for an FCC/IC-approved cellular module, SIM7000A. Apparently, to meet IC modular certification, you need to select an antenna which has

a) equal or less gain and

b) which is the same type

as the antenna that was used during FCC/IC testing of the module.

Question

I'm new to RF wireless and I'm trying to find a dipole antenna, since this is the type of antenna that SIM7000A used in its certification testing. I also know what frequency bands I need and what maximum gain I can have in each band. When I research on Digikey and Mouser there are a lot of antennas which are classified as PCB, or chip, or blade, etc. My problem is that I can't tell if an antenna is a dipole antenna or not: is there an easy way I can tell? For most of them, it doesn't mention the words dipole or monopole anywhere on their datasheets.

Answer 1

The term dipole comes from the fact, that such an antenna has two poles instead of one (monopole).

A monopole looks like a simple pole standing on the ground, which is the reference (other pole) in that case.

In a dipole, you have two poles (often pointing in different directions) referencing each other and no ground plane.

Because of that, a dipole has to be fed with a symmetrical signal, whereas a monopole can be fed with a asymmetrical signal (referenced to ground).