Mark is right. This is an ancient antenna. Anyone interested can
look up the article on normal-mode helical antennas in the
_Antenna Engineering Handbook_ and get some references at the
end of the chapter for further study. Most of references date from the

'60s and '70s.

Of course it is. It often amuses me how often stuff is
"reinvented". Heck, I've even done it myself by accident...
But I never had any thoughts of filing a patent, or
whatever...I never had any delusions that surely no one
else in the world had thought of it, and it ended up as such.
I think people forget just how much antenna
experimentation has already been done. There was loads
of experimentation done from the 30's thru the 50's,
covering nearly everything imaginable. Ole John calls
me a nut, but if I hear someone say, "they all think
all is known about antennas" one more time, I'm gonna
puke. He and Art sound like the same whiny broke record.
Almost exactly to the word. Of course, no one here thinks
*all* is known about antennas. But I can assure you that
most all the theory has been pretty much etched in stone
for quite a few years. No one is going to come up with some
new gadjit that is going to break all the rules. Just
ain't gonna happen. Sure, minor touch ups of theory will
surely occur, but nothing major is going to be changed,
or it would have by now. It's comparible to the field of
aeronautics/aircraft,etc... People will continue to design
new aircraft, but no one is going to design something that
breaks all the rules. I've got a large walk in closet full of
QST's going back to the middle 30's. Thumbing through a few
of those 30's thru 50's issues might surprise some as to
how much was known even at that time. Nothing major as far
as theory as changed since that time, and that was a half
century ago. These days, if someone tries something that is
truly new, you can bet it will be pretty "out there". But
it won't break any rules of theory. It will just be a new
method of applying it. Unfortunately for John, what he is
doing is old news...But at least it's not something silly..
It is a viable antenna. And thus, not to say it's not worth
messing with...Everything I use is old news...Some of the
old news, will always be the best news...IE: no one is going
to be able to improve much on the efficiency of a simple
coax fed dipole on HF...MK