Re: NEC-LIST: CFA for MF AM Broadcasting

In a message dated 2/25/99 7:26:17 AM Eastern Standard Time,
Jack Belrose <john.belrose_at_crc.ca> writes:

<< So could this fairy tale antenna be real??? If so we are on the verge
 of an antenna revolution.>>

If that's true Jack, I'll eat a CFA..or a fractal (which will probably
get stuck;-))

I just want to add my experience in the matter. Early on in the
modeled fractal work(circa 1995), modeling indicated that substantial
field strength advantages were to be had with very electrically small
fractal antennas. That result turned out to be spurious, the result of
improper sampling of very close-spaced wires. Indeed, such results
were never published, but some hams caught onto it and pushed it as
some' snake oil' nonsense. This precipitated publications by Cohen and
Hohlfeld (Comm Quart 1996) and myself (Proc.ACES 1997) to set the
record straight; indeed, there is an advantage when JUST electrically
small--because of phasing effects which are real and not model
artifacts. These have been confirmed by measurement. (Unfortunately
Carles Puente has made a very big deal of this, calling such results
'stonishing')

Yet even today when the web page stresses that ALL VERY electrically
small antennas a very poor radiators (in some circumstances fractal
antennas on this scale are trivially better in field strength; a dB or
two max at -30dBd!) I still get righteously indignant e-mail about
junk science and fraud.

What I am saying is that having spent a considerable amount of time
exploring electrically small limits and I have full confidence that a
radiator 1.8% in wavelength is a poor one.

Are we next to hear that a 160M isotron will be adapted by Group W for
MF broadcast--or that a CTHA doughnut the size of a sno tube is being
used at KDKA?

As I said, 'I'll eat antenna':-)

73
Chip N1IR

73
Chip N1IR
Received on Sun Feb 28 1999 - 04:33:30 EST