Actually, the CFA reported in the journal is a serious offering, although
at present the theory behind it and the ability to replicate or model the
antenna are under serious discussion among a number antenna engineers.
Jack Belrose is making very intensive efforts to model that antenna, while
a number of investigators are attempting "live" versions. However, the
information to date is incomplete--especially in the derivations that
would link the fundamental principles taken from Maxwell's laws to
practical and calculable quantities that would allow building a CFA. Most
of the test antennas are educated guesses, and outside the group of
inventors, good results have not generally emerged. Hence, those
interested in the antenna are awaiting the summer report of test results.
I happen to be awaiting the necessary derivations to make sense of any
physical implementation of the principle and reserve all judgment until
this material is available.
A series of articles in AntenneX gives some sense of both the general idea
and the difficulties of implementation. I understand that Hateley himself
will be writing an article for a future issue. He is listed as co-author
on the early articles, but Hart is the main author of them. The big C
antenna shown at the GAP site is considered another version of the CFA by
many folks, but patent contests may determine how the makers construe the
antenna.
Hope this is useful as a brief status report as I understand developments
so far.
-73-
LB, W4RNL
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