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The Incredible Shrinking Antenna
pinkUZI writes "NYTimes ran an article yesterday about a new material, created by a general manager at Integral Technologies, that would enable use of the plastic mold of a cell phone as its Antenna. Pretty neat, as it actually increases the size of the antenna while decreasing the footprint."
Does this even work with a hand holding the plastic case?
~~~LXT~~~
Life is like a computer program: anything that can't happen, will.
Great, now my phone is gonna be so tiny I can put it on my keychain!
With Intel planning on integrated circuits with radio antennas built in by 2010, I wonder if this technology can me melded to provided better range and gain. For example, if your PDA is the size of a 100mm square chip and is embedded in your neck, you can get a range of 10 meters instead of one.
How does this affect the old "Brain Cancer" study for cell phones?
I heard that you want the antenna pointing out, not up, now the whole phone's the antenna.
Anyone know the dealio with this? IANAD, so please take this with a grain of salt.
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
1) Place said cell phone into a cold swimming pool.
2) Watch and learn.
I'm definitely not the athority on this subject, but i thought the antenna was tuned to the proper frequency and that making it longer (or shorter) would make it less effective. Anybody want to speak to this?
This assumes that cellphones can give you braincancer (they certainly can give you headaches;)
This makes the antenna bigger. That means that the phone will send the braincancer waves to a bigger part of your brain, don't it? And it will be more difficult to shield the antenna because the outside of the phone will be a complete antenna. Also a larger antenna doesn't neccesarely mean that it's better, I believe that for every wavelength there's an optimal size (if I remember correctly).
Or you can just plug yourself into a high-yield electrical outlet and become the antenna!
------
Today's Top Deals
It'd be nice to not have an antenna to break off, but I don't want it to be any more effective than the current ones, unless it's more directional, which the article does not indicate it is. More effective cell coverage seems a better solution to me.
On the other hand, some of the other applications sound mighty nice, especially for military vehicles and such.
My Nokia 3330 (and I believe most nokias) already doesn't have an external antenna, so what's the big deal? Perhaps the antenna would effectivly be larger but again, I don't see a great deal of point in that, it's very rare that I get less than about 75% signal strength already, and there's more cells going up all the time.
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And the people shall be oppressed, every one by another, and every one by his neighbour Isaiah 3:5
You don't want the output power to actually be doubled...you want it to be just right, and your output power is effectively government by the cellsite that you're using for your upstream transmission.
;-)
So hopefully this will just end up as a more *efficient* antenna and not a more powerful one
I can also see some cellphone manufacturers not wanting to cast their phones in silcone -- preferring ABS.
Plus, I wonder that without an RF "hotspot" where the antenna is, would this phone have a *better* chance of irradiating your head?
Imagine all the implanted execs actually looking forward to boring meetings to call up their dial-a-pr0n.
Gotta love those dry days, when you're walking on a thick carpet and your phone rings.
Hope you don't keep it in your pants pocket.
All thorough studies with this topic have demonstrated no statistical significant difference between the general population and those that use cell phones.
With antenna-less phones, like the Nokia 8260 and the Nokia 3360, I don't worry about antennas anyway, and these phones are here now, and work with my wireless company!
Disclaimer: I'm not an employee of either, but I do use rogers...
--
Some weasel took the cork out of my lunch.
800 MHz cellular has a wavelength of approximately 37 centimeters, about 15 inches. So an ideal antenna would be half that, about seven and a half inches. This refers to the dipole, the distance from the tip of the antenna to the opposite end of the antenna buried inside the phone somewhere (usually near the bottom). 1900 MHz PCS has a wavelength of approximately 16 centimeters, about six inches. So the ideal antenna dipole is about 3 inches.
The ideal antenna performs best if it is exactly perpendicular to the impinging waveform. In practice the orientation of the phone is somewhat random; the antenna will be pointed approximately upward, but probably at a slant. So cell phone manufacturers generally try to make the antenna 5/8's of a waveform, because if the antenna is at a slant, its cross-section relative to the impinging waveform will be near to the ideal half a wavelength. For a dual-band phone, one which operates at both 1900 and at 800 MHz, it's obvious that determining the antenna length is a bit of a problem. (But not insoluble; it's just a compromise. Since digital is usually more resilient than AMPS, usually the length is optimized for 800 MHz.)
Making the antenna shorter will both decrease the amount of incoming signal the phone receives, and will make the phone's transmitter less efficient. But CDMA operates over a very wide range of effective powers, and it can usually compensate. That's why the phone will usually work with the antenna down. And because it's digital, if it is working it will sound exactly the same. This has lead some people to conclude that the antenna is not actually doing anything for them, which is not quite correct. While the phone can operate with the antenna down, it's easier on the phone if you raise the antenna; it has more signal ceiling to work with and will be less likely to drop the call. Also, it will use somewhat less transmit power, and your battery will last somewhat longer.
Making it longer with some sort of extension is worse than useless; it actually degrades the signal. If the antenna is exactly one wavelength long and is exactly perpendicular to the impinging waveform, it will pick up essentially no signal at all.
When it reaches one and a half wavelengths, signal strength is again maximized, but for physical reasons it's a bit lower than the strength with a half-wavelength antenna. (The physical reason is that the antenna is not an ideal conductor.)
[stolen directly from the CDMA FAQ
From the article:
"Integral is even talking to a provider of satellite tracking services about turning truck bumpers into giant antennas by making them out of a rubbery blend of the new material."
Although it has improved in recent years, the quality of reporting of technical issues is often very poor. Truck bumpers are already metal. Why not just insulate them from the truck body, and use that as an antenna? The article does not say.
Bush's education improvements were
Here we are talking about cell phones and some of the paranoid folks are worrying about brain cancer (although there is no statistical significant difference between cell phone users and non users) and I see the quote at the bottom of the page. Arnold's Addendum: Anything not fitting into these categories causes cancer in rats. made me laugh...
The sad part is that the laws of changes haven't changed, and people are being duped into thinking that all of these small antennae will actually be efficient.
Even sadder are the charlatans on TV advertising drop-in antennas for cell phones that purportedly increase the range of a cell phone. The FTC has already cracked down on the so-called "shields"; it's time they got together with the FCC to publically keel-haul the "antenna" vendors.
Any high school physics books will have the equation describing the relationship between frequency and wavelength of an electromagnetic wave. Just because some clown can hook a 1cm bit of copper to a chip without any impedance matching or other attempt to make it resonate, doesn't mean it's done properly.
OTOH, having these inefficient antennas will help reduce the noise floor on the bands involved which, after all are shared on a secondary basis with other users who'd like to be able to hear each other. (Yes, and I was a 75W rockbound Novice, and my Extra is a real one that required 20WPM!)
Can one make replacement battery covers or back covers that would serve as the antenna? My tiny little Nokia with the internal antenna could sure use some help.
Amusingly, Slashdot rejected an article submission I had for fractal antennas and how they are vastly superior in terms of reception to whats on the market today. Better than the stuff mentioned in this article, certianly.
Cheers, and yes PROPAGANDA will be back soon.
Bowie J. Poag
that could prevent the increase of radiation on cell phones? A major problem with them.
------I can please only one person per day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow isn't looking good either.------
What the changes in impedance will be from user to user? Will having sweaty palms make much difference? And, while a larger antenna might seem better, would it be directional, varying with the shape of the phone?
I'm not sure that I want my hand and face even closer to the source of the RF radiation. Doesn't the field strength vary with the inverse cube of distance? There's not much distance when you're touching the antenna.
Lemon curry?
So, your telling me that a general manager created this? Riiiight. Most general managers can't even turn on a cell phone without being shown 2-3 times first. I bet some poor shlub from engineering created it first and the manager took all the credit. ;)
An optimist believes we live in the best world possible; a pessimist fears this is true.
Ok, who believes it was really the general manager who came up with this thing?
"Actually, I enjoyed this in the same vague, horrible way I enjoyed the A-Team" P. Opus
How easily can this be ported to say using a plastic computer case for an antenna for wireless lan or how about a cordless phone? With all the plastic in cars ... imagine the reception you could get? Would this mean that my alarm radio will finally get good reception? Could I finally have a decent wireless link for my TiVo!?
So now ill be able to have teh effect of holding a brick of plutionum next to my head with a cell phone
YUMMY, CANCER!
"All I can tell the "lesser of two evils" folks is that if they keep voting for evil, they'll keep getting evil."-Lp.org
Anybody know the physics (or lack thereof) behind these things?
wait a minute, I thought there was a NYTimes article about fractal antennas a while back... or was that slashdot? Where was it - anybody remember this?
since noone has posted it yet, i guess my karma-whoring is as good as any ..
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ive lost the link to the article, but the FTC is taking them on for deceptive marketing. they do nothing, and in some cases, actually reduce reception..
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Just think if this had been available during the CIA's
Operation Acoustic Kitty program? They could have made kitty dentures be the antenna, instead of that "hard to maintiain" tail.
Of course, it'd still have problems with wandering away & getting hit by traffic...
...in my opinion, is that a general manager did something useful.
It's a sure sign of the End Times. Gotta be. We'll be seeing pigs fly, next.
--
Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
This may be the first time that a General Manager has accomplished anything!
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
--Dave Lister
My cell phone is already on my 'coins' pocket, it is really small. The only think big is the antenna and the battery. If you could also put the battaery small enough and still with a lot of power, we could have a real tiny cell phone.
------I can please only one person per day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow isn't looking good either.------
Couple this idea with the Aluminium Foil Deflector Beanie and you would have something...
I thought that your antenna size was related to the size of your feet?
Gee... 2.4ghz right in the palm of your hand and
contact with the ear and skull. Someone should
do a health study on this. I treat a cell phone
like fire. And my antennea is as far as it can go away from my head. And I tested it with a meter to see where the safe zone was.
Integral Technologies announced that they will be collaborating with Apple on a new PDA-Cellphone device called IgotCancer.
Imagine just how much Cartman must wish the aliens had that kind of technology after recieving an anal probe from them.
Mind the frickin' laser...
http://home.att.net/~nomdreserv/Stories.html
t ml
The story is "Not another medallion."
You might also like "Slumber Party," found at http://users.transfur.com/dreamtales/sally/srsw.h
Monopoly is a business term, integration is a technology term, so integration isn't a monopoly, it was the MS method for extending it's OS monopoly for browsers, in effort to control develolment of HTML.
Secondly, if you want the Konquerer out of KDE, you can do it yourself, because it's open source.
I wonder what something like this could do for my 802.11 airport network.
Like it or not, your head is part of the antenna. As the microwaves bounce around up there, the tumors would form in areas where the radiation was highest. Once the tumors got to sufficant size, they would resonate, giving you a better signal.
So, if you all the sudden find that your cell phone is working really good, even in remote places....
I guess they wanna embed the antenna in between layers of plastic, similar to what is done on laptop casings for ground plane.(But what about the loading inductor???)
/* AMITRA */
I don't think this technology will be used anytime soon...
if so, then I would like to hire him. I am tired of having fools that are empty suits put in technical positions (marketers, et al) I GOTTA get this guy
So better check that out before u try reheating that mug of milk.
/* AMITRA */
Good, the things are getting smaller. Now there should be no problem for you to shove your cell phone up your butt while you are driving.
Topic: The Incredible Shrinking Antenna
Dept: from the two-inches-is-plenty dept.
and here
Read whatever psycological significance you want into the above. I'm merely an observer. I will say, however, that for Kathleen's sake, hopefully Taco is just spending lots of time in the pool.
The neutrality of this sig is disputed.
I can see it now:
"... but now there's the new Case Antenna! It's like adding a five-mile long antenna to your phone!
Look! We put these two cell phones next to each other on the surface of Mars. The regular phone gets no reception. But the Case Antenna gets reception which violates the laws of physics!
Amazing!
The Case Antenna is regularly sold for five million dollars. But with our exclusive TV offer, you can get it for nineteen easy payments of $19.95! (plus what the Antenna actually cost us, disguised as a shipping & handling charge)"
I'm turning off the TV now...
-- We live in a world where lemonade is artificial and soap has real lemon.
What if you get shock your phone while touching it? That would be sending 10,000 volts right up the kazoo!!!
Sudo Penguin
I for one would love a vibrating phone up my butt.
Matching foil underwear might be nice, too. For the man who has everything....
"Those who have never entered upon scientific pursuits know not a tithe of the poetry by which they are surrounded."
Poor Taco... or Poor Kathleen.... I sure hope she
knows about this.
A couple years ago I read about a similar thread of research concerning fractal antennas. You can eiter have an array of fractal elements or a single wire bent into a fractal shape. With the array of elements you can get the range and reception qualities of a random antenna array and still have an efficient system like a regular array. With a single wire you it ends up needing only a fraction of the space it needed before for the same length wire. You can fit a half wavelength dipole inside the housing of the phone quite easily. Jagging the shape of the wire introduces natural capacitance and inductance so less external equipment is needed to tune the antenna. IIRC the single wire antennas used Koch curves. The people who started the research on them formed a company called Fractal Antenna Systems who are trying to work with eantenna manufacturers. Sych antennas could be molded into the plastic case of a cell phone AND be 20% more efficient. A link to Koch curves (java is a good thing to have) is here. I don't remember which SciAm article I read the story from but I think it was in 1999.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
RF in general are never good to any living things (including humans), that's because you are propagating some medium to get a signal across. Just think of the tin can and string sceniro, except you are now making the medium be your head and the air, while the output power/propagation effect (how fast the string is resonating - the can and string sceniro) be micro scale which means resonances in cell levels. As a result, I think any common sense would solve the rest of the questions..
If you don't have Java installed, but you do have Xscreensaver installed, you can just run the `ccurve' hack. It looks quite similar to these Kock curves.
Withdrawal before climax is very ineffective and those who try this are usually called "parents."
In fact, there are several cell phones that use integral antennas. Why don't all have it? I suspect it's because an antenna that sticks out beyond the part of the phone that is covered by your hand probably works better.
It's my cellphone!
The structure of the eye tends to focus the
signal into local spots. The brain just heats
up a bit, and gets increased neuron activity.
This isn't as cool as a paint material that can be used as an antenna. The material is being developed by DARPA for use by the military. There's a story about it here.
Never mind this cell phone crap! I need to fit an antenna for 160m in something smaller than my apartment!
my 'antenna' shrinks with a decrease of temperature, but it doesnt mean it uses more power to drive it? :)
my blog
I think she does by now. :)
-- F.S.
This is completely foreign to my experience! A general manager creating something other than a spreadsheet or a headache?
I'm inclined to believe a person was promoted to general manager for technical chops they earned in the past, or maybe even because of this wonderful invention. But was this person a general manager *when they created* this device? Not likely! I want to work at that company.
my "antenna" is shrinking just reading about this :/
mp3s by me
Isn't the whole point with external antenna to spread the EMF radiation away from your brain? If the plastic is part of the antenna, wouldn't it just bring it closer?
_______________________________
"I'm not Conceited...I'm just a realist..."
My phone manual clearly states "Avoid touching the antenna!" So are we supposed to stop touching the entire phone? I think the new technology is preposterous ... we could always have had internal metal strips in the casing as antennas, we dont need some stupid plastic material to turn the case into an antenna!
This new technology is a hoax.
Dont make a better sig, you insensitive clod!