Hmm, I think there might be something to this thing. Looking down at it from the top side of the antenna, it appears to be a form of small transmitting loop antenna with multiple loops. Looking at it from the side of the antenna, it appears to be a short vertical.
i put my 2/440 version through our courthouse security scanner. It is in a white plastic bowl. Not the greatest image. Not much guts to the antenna either but it work ok for its small size. On my car roof , center left side, it works as good and sometimes better than a Comet SBB5 that is trunk mounted
I forgot all about this thread until it was revived with another post today. Here is a link to the paper referenced in the article on metamaterial antennas you referred to above. http://www2.engr.arizona.edu/~ziolk...ski_Peng_Z_antenna_measurements_AWPL_2009.pdf Notably their antenna has 30 dB better power output than a monopole of the same vertical size. The metamaterials field is fascinating, basically controlling EM waves with numerous sub-wavelength structures to diffract the waves in desirable ways. That's very different than the Compactenna which is basically a variation of a spiral antenna per this patent https://patents.google.com/patent/US9407001
I finally had to change it out. I got tired of people flagging me down telling me I left something on my car!
Wonder if this is similar to the beer can antennas popular with the 11m crowd? I see way more pick-em-up trucks with beer can antennas, and fewer Firestiks and whatnot nowadays.
