Abstract: A multibeam antenna system in which an antenna aperture element is deliberately selected to produce a divergent beam at a desired angular beamwidth. The antenna aperture may, for example, take the form of a hyperboloid reflector, a diverging lens, or a defocused paraboloid reflector. For the divergent secondary beams produced in these configurations, the angular beamwidth may be conveniently controlled by varying the mangification of the aperture or the degree of defocusing, without significantly affecting the gain or efficiency of the system. The degree of beam overlap may be independently controlled by scaling the size of the aperture, without significantly affecting the beamwidth, the gain or the efficiency.