Important innovation and Amateur Radio: INVENTION OF THE FRACTAL ANTENNA

Thankfully there are those among us that did not listen when somebody said: It can't be done.

73

 

With all due respect to the author, who is obviously knowledgeable, I have to wonder how these stack up (performance wise) against other antenna options. Mathematics is a means of describing the real world, so theoretical solutions can be tried without their physical proof. The branch of mathematics called fractals describe nature in a particular way - how do we know for certain they provide a realistic model of the world in relation to RF? Quantum physics is another branch of mathematics, and does not provide a realistic model. The propagation of signals and antenna theory is known to be described accurately by more 'ordinary' math. Our world is increasingly occupied by solutions that don't solve problems as well as the solutions that were tried and true for years. Just wondering...

 

Fractals are a geometric-based, physical construct, not just a mathematical 'branch'. That absence in understanding the distinction has been an unhelpful restriction in many individual's effort to understand fractal antennas. It is akin to the analogy that math speaks of infinity--but the universe itself is not an infinite entity.

Fractal are not an antenna option. They are an antenna SOLUTION. Whether they are USEFUL for a given application depends on what problem you are trying to solve. Size, gain, pattern, efficiency, polarization, footprint, cost, multibandedness, as well as many other factors all play into what antenna gets used for a given application. Fractals open a design space not available with conventional designs. For example--look at the pictures in the article.

If you can get away with a dipole, why should you use a Yagi-Uda? Now: substitute 'fractal' for 'Yagi-Uda' in that sentence and you see that need dictates antenna. Antenna solutions are not opinions based on taste; they are optimizations based on specs and cost.

I suspect that a lot of the 'haters' (not yourself) are still angry at me from 1995, when I took the first major step to take invention of antennas deeply into the geometric realm. Certainly many are affronted by getting PATENTS based on....heavens!...geometry!

These days these same types of people are affronted by my emphasis on evanescent waves...which are best enabled by fractal structures. Doubtlessly they are mortified by my other patents for fractal electronic/electromagnetic applications, such as: batteries; electromagnets; flat lenses; radar reflectors; metamaterials; invisibility cloaks; deflector shields; anti-corrosion; superconductors; heat dissipation; cooling; and so on.

73
Chip W1YW

 

The question is to what extent (and ERP) this fractal design can be applied to HF antennas? Will we get a full scale 80m antenna on the surface of a table? Or a legit 2m antenna the size of a Silver Eagle?
If yes, that would be awesome and make many things easier, especially for those who "suffer" from HOA-itis

 

We used to attend a computer "conference" once a month in Dallas -- mid-90-ish. One day someone showed up with a satellite antenna about a foot square, held it up to a window, and viola -- satellite TV with a decent picture, using something infinitely smaller than the dishes we were accustomed to. Very impressive.

 

Hams, as a whole, are roughly 20-25 years behind the times in exploring fractal antenna options. I doubt a fractal cylindrical 'wire' 80m antenna with gain from multiple current maxima is the first order of business in such a catch-up.

You can't make any useful antenna the size of a silver dollar for 2m. Any antenna. Why? because it is well within its own radiansphere. Fractals can help make something radiate well that is small for 2M. but not that small. It does so by not only having the usual hi Q resonance (with an electrically small antenna) but degenerate resonances that 'meld' to a broader passband and thus make it useful and efficient. Thus the 'small antenna that ends up narrow band' has been rendered moot. The 'meld' stuff was published in 1996...and apparently ignored by hams.

 

Why would ANY HF antenna need to be super thin?

What is it about a fractal antenna that allows you to conjecture that the wire, or traces, are so thin that they can't handle legal limit power?

Just curious.

That's a new one on me. I see no foundation for that comment.

My antennas on MF and HF --fractal--easily take legal limit.

 

WWWWOw! very good.