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Old Geek Invents New Stick
the morgawr writes "According to the EE Times and Science Blog, a scientist at University of Rhode Island has developed a new type of antenna design that, by increasing the efficiency, performs as well as the convential quarter-wave design but is only 1/3 as large."
No, you're thinking of the VHF FM band...that is exactly the case there.
On the AM radio band the tower IS the antenna. What you see sticking up in the air is usually insulated from ground right at the base, the part you see is actually hot. Therefore the tower itself radiates and is engineered to be a certain height as part of antenna design.
. Quit playing Monopoly with Bill. Switch to one of many non-Microsoft products today.
"I think the actual antenna is attached to the top of the tower. It's not the entire tower. Can someone help me out here?"
Long (LF) and medium wave (MF) antennas usually are the entire tower because of the low wavelength. For VHF (e.g. FM radio) and TV the antenna is much shorter so it is at the top of the tower.
One way to tell if it is not obvious is to look at the steel support ropes. If they are broken along their length with insulators then it is probably a long wave or medium wave antenna. The steel rope is broken in this way to prevent the wire being long enough to become a significant and undesireable part of the antenna.