"John Gilmer" wrote in message
net...
Hi:

A month or so ago I say a PBS piece on fractals. The piece claimed that
the "technology" is used to make the antennas for cell phones.


That might be true. There's certainly material on the www about research
into fractal antennas that can be Googled, such as
http://ceta.mit.edu/pierb/pierb14/07.09030802.pdf


Have any amateurs used "fractal technology" to form their antennas?

Also, I note that "they" market HDTV antennas that are about the size of a
book. Do these things work? What's inside them?


As you may realise, terrestrial broadcasting provides a large margin for a
lot of households which makes it possible to receive good signals in some
areas using a dead sheep. Consequently indoor television antennas are sold
in a variety of styles and, at some locations, some of them work - even if
they have meagre electrical characteristics. Unfortunately, there is a
tendency for unqualified folklore to arise about antennas that appear to
work (in particular circumstances). The DVB-T system used in Europe is
particularly resistant to multipath distortion, which helps.

Some book-sized efforts contain a PCB bow tie in front of a plane reflector.
In others, the shapes of the elements are fiddled around with like
http://www.instructables.com/id/How_...DTV_DTV_plus_/

Chris