Art wrote,

Tom, I wouldn't be so quick in using the term " impossible" if I were
you until the facts come out. He has already stated that he has a
distributed load antenna which he referres to as a two dimensional
helix, which I see as a meander line on a circuit board. This
ofcourse, provides an antenna of very small size which has some
drawbacks. But the inventor states that the design is a combination of
known ideas which may well be a method of overcomming initial
drawbacks. After all a University have placed themselves behind the
inventor and most of us did not go to University on a platform of
disbelieving our professors . Even if it all turns out to be a
mistaken idea the majority of hams will learn from future interchange
rather than tagging along with those who believe all is already
known.Usually the best inventions are an amaqlgamation of all the good
observations noted in otherwise bad ideas/inventions made by somebody
who looks for every morsel that is new and is
resourceful enough to connect the dots before it becomes obvious to
the followers.It is rare that someting that comes along is totally new
in its entirety.
Regards
Art


Hi Art,
he may very well have produced an antenna that works as
advertised. Time will tell. However, in evaluating the claims of anyone
who invents something new it is always advisable to compare those claims with
current theory before accepting them wholeheartedly. It isn't impossible to
make a small, useful, antenna - the small-in-terms-of-wavelength loop
is a case in point - but to make a small antenna with all the characteristics
of a large antenna strains the credibility. It sounds as if this gentleman
is trying to take advantage of the properties of the double-tuned circuit in
order to achieve a larger bandwidth while maintaining good efficiency.
If so, it's an interesting idea and I hope it works, but I'm not going to
get excited about it until I know more, such as, what happens to
the radiation pattern when the current in the top part of the
antenna is out of phase with the current in the bottom
part? Does it then radiate straight up, or does he have some
method of controlling the phase so it doesn't do this?
73,
Tom Donaly, KA6RUH