Old Geek Invents New Stick

the morgawr writes "According to the EE Times and Science Blog, a scientist at University of Rhode Island has developed a new type of antenna design that, by increasing the efficiency, performs as well as the convential quarter-wave design but is only 1/3 as large."

Ahh yes, but....

[BlueCodeWarrior]

Can it be adjusted to fit on top of my tinfoil hat?

Suggested name...

[Anonymous Coward]

"performs as well as the convential quarter-wave design but is only 1/3 as large"

Behold! I give you the twelfth-wave design!!

Heh

[xSquaredAdmin]

Once again, it's been proven that it's not how big it is, but how well you use it.

Re:Ahh yes, but....

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, but you'd look like a Teletubby...

Re:Will we see this at

[scatter_gather]

Not unless you look 3 times harder.

Pringles mini can

[192939495969798999]

He found that by using those pringles mini cans, he could get similar reception to that of a regular-sized pringles can.

He expects to get a 10x power boost from metal chewing gum wrappers, and 50x from a microwaved AOL CD!

let's ask the ladies out there

[Jrod5000 at RPI]

c'mon, i don't care what you say... if it's 1/3 as large no woman on earth would believe it performs as well! :p

Re:Heh

[denisdekat]

Rats, so that means I got to get good at using it then :( All along I was counting on my size... Of antena that is ;)

gotta say it...

[Anonymous Coward]

worst headline ever!

Re:let it be said: patents at their best

[AliasTheRoot]

I just hope he hasn't taken a 30 foot antenna and bent it every 12 inches then wrapped ductape around it.

Re:Ahh yes, but....

[Short Circuit]

Picture a new kind of beanie...instead of a propellor, it's an antenna for your cell phone.

Re:Pringles mini can

[AliasTheRoot]

It's been scientifically proven that for this to work you also need 30 metres of string attached to either end, and just everso slightly under 30 metres of distance between the transmitter and receiver.

Communications engineers call this the Knot principle.

Re:Very promising!

[sndtech]

Actually from what the article says power usage would actually be limited by the antenna, whn he cranked up the power on his to full power he melted it.
of course we'll probably see a few cell phone designers screw up and over power the antenna and melt the phone into someones head.

Re:Heh

[Short Circuit]

If you've got antennae, you might want to join a circus. I hear they pay big money for people like you. :)

Twice the frequency

[wombatmobile]

"The technology is completely scalable: Take the component values and divide them by two, and you get twice the frequency; take all the component values and multiply them by two, and you are at half the frequency," said Vincent.

That's been known [born-today.com] for quite some time.

Re:Fractal antennas

[AliasTheRoot]

It probably picks up mainstream channels, Fractal antennas are stuck with Mandelbrotadio.

Re:Ahh yes, but....

[Anonymous Coward]

1. Reroute the DMCA protected goverment mindwaves through a "IEEE-666 mindwave bandwidth coaxial cable".

2. Tape a car aerial a plastic "Captain Scarlet Mysteron(tm)" raygun, link it to the coax.

3. Call your self Captain Black.

4. Take over the world in the name of an unseen alien presence, by shooting people with rings of light.

5. ???

6. Profit!

Re:Very promising!

[W2IRT]

Sounds like something you'd see in the April issue of QST. Read the comments on e-Ham!

Now, if it's for real, look out ye topbanders - y'all are about to be invaded!

Re:Picture anyone?

[wombatmobile]

I'd love to see a picture of this as I don't know much about antennae.

Here [arxia.com].

Re:No details of operation

[AliasTheRoot]

but with a 2d antenna the strongest signal will always be perpendicular, you cant count on some random rock happening to bounce a muted signal in the correct direction.

if that was the case everyone would point their satelite dishes in whatever direction and place rocks around it until the signal was strong enough.

Re:Very promising!

[19thNervousBreakdown]

Not when they're made from my room-temperature superconducting material, they're not!