[TowerTalk] Fractal Antennas, Chip Cohen (N1IR) on Nova Last Night

[jimlux]

Joe Giacobello, K2XX wrote:
>   Nova did a presentation on fractals last night, and there was about a 
> five minute segment with N1IR and fractal antennas.  Apparently, they're 
> finding applications in cell phones and the like.  Although I don't 
> remember the details, N1IR took a lot of heat from some members of the 
> various ham antenna forums when he first proposed his ideas.  I guess 
> that was about ten years ago.  Have he and his concepts now been vindicated?
> 


For a given physical size, there's lots of ways to arrange an antenna, 
especially one for multiple bands. For antennas that are "small" 
compared to a wavelength, they all pretty much work about the same, with 
small differences in ease of matching in a particular circuit or bands.

Fractals are nice in some ways, because they are self-similar at 
multiple scales, which might be a convenient way to make a broad band 
antenna.  Of course, there's lots of other scale-invariant designs, like 
Log Periodic Dipole Arrays, spirals of one sort or another, etc.  but 
those have all been around a while.

The other funky looking antenna that's popular of late is something done 
by running a genetic algorithm on a random collection of wires or 
patches of conductor on a substrate.


If you can come up with a "unique" way, then you can get a patent on it, 
even if it doesn't work particularly much better or worse. That patent 
might allow you to prevent someone from copying a bigger device, if the 
design of the antenna is sufficiently integrated.