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."

Comments

let it be said: patents at their best

[circletimessquare]

this is patents at their best: the little guy innovates, and becomes the not-so-little guy in reward

that should be the purpose of patents, to protect the little guy who innovates

let us hope that we can back to this world, a world where patents reward innovation, instead of suppress it

it is a delicate balance, but there are hordes of ip lawyers and corporate whores out there who are hard at work, having sold their conscience, hard at work warping the balance in the direction of those who don't deserve to be rewarded for suppressing true innovation like this

Re:let it be said: patents at their best

[AndroidCat]

Hopefully it is innovative. A lot of people have played around with antennas over the years, especially amateurs trying to fit a big antenna in a small space. I'd be surprised if no one has tried something close to it.

So let's hope it's not just a tweak of something that was in QST magazine thirty years ago.

I was happy to see...

[mobiux]

That the University of Rhode Island and the Physics dept were made beneficiaries of the patent.

I can see this generating alot of revenue, and people (corporations) that may try to rip this off.
At least they will have a vested interest in fighting for the patent.

Can you say prior art?

[Almost-Retired]

From the simplistic description given, this design has hundreds of thousands or prior art examples already sold in the marketplace, and has had for maybe 45 years.

Most any CB'er that wasn't running a full 1/4 wave stick on the roof of his car, and getting it mangled by driving thru any overpass with less than 14 feet of clearance, was using a shortened antenna of this design. They were also a bit narrowband, having extreme difficulties in getting 1.3/1 or better vswr performance over the 40 channels of the cb band.

They alsa radiate a disproportionate amount of their power well above the horizon, reducing the gain in the real world.

New? Yeah, somewhat like me, I'll be 70 in a few months.

I suspect that there are, or were (some having gone on to that big retirement party in the sky held for failed companies or merged into oblivion entities) plenty of patents that will prove prior art, if the patent office wasn't too understaffed and lazy to search for them. Avanti & HiGain are just 2 names that come to mind.

Scuse me while I chuckle at yet another of the patent offices incompetant blunders.

Cheers, Gene

Re:Ham response

[Lumpy]

that is because it goes agains all antenna and RF theory.

Granted, I have seen antennas that defy logic until you really understand how they are working.... the Discone antenna for example... but this one still is baffling and the lack of details increases the skeptical thoughts... no explination at ALL on how it works, no theory explained other than "i did this... no you cant look at it!" responses...