The paper presents an overview of theoretical aspects of small radio telescope antenna parameters. The basic parameters include antenna beamwidth, antenna gain, aperture efficiency, and antenna temperature. These parameters should be carefully studied since they have vital effects on astronomical radio observations. The simulations of antenna parameters were carried out to assess the capability and the efficiency of small radio telescopes to observe a point source at a specific frequency. Two-dimensional numerical simulations of a uniform circular aperture antenna are implemented at different radii. The small diameter values are chosen to be varied between (1-10) m. This study focuses on a small radio telescope with a diameter of 3 m since this telescope is very common in the world. The simulated results of this study illustrated that the power pattern of a 3 m antenna has a half-power beamwidth of approximately 5 degrees. Also, the maximum peak antenna temperature is estimated to be more than 3000 K. All of these results were in good agreement with observations of the neutral hydrogen spectral line at the frequency of 1.42 GHz using a small radio telescope.

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Solar hydrogen line emission has been observed at the frequency of 1.42 GHz (21 cm wavelength) with 3 m radio telescope installed inside the University of Baghdad campus. Several measurements related to the sun have been conducted and computed from the radio telescope spectrometer. These measurements cover the solar brightness temperature, antenna temperature, solar radio flux, and the antenna gain of the radio telescope. The results demonstrate that the maximum antenna temperature, solar brightness temperature, and solar flux density are found to be 970 K, 49600 K, and 70 SFU respectively. These results show perfect correlation with recent published studies.