Is This REAL?
Many questions and statements are being
made about these antennas being fake or a hoax. Lets
update things a little. Current antenna technology is based upon
apeture or size in relation to the speed of light. That
is, the length of the antenna is based upon how fast electricity
travels down a wire at the frequency of operation. This is
old school thinking.
Where does it say that you have to have an antenna of a certain
size? The antenna books say you do...
Keep in mind that with very few exceptions, we are still making
antennas based on 100 year old technology.
This design cannot be modeled with current antenna modeling
software because it is not designed using any of the equations
those programs use to determine performance.
1st rule of antenna design is: All antennas must have a return
path, similar to a magnet with both a north and south pole, same
thing for an antenna, no exceptions, period..
2nd rule of antenna design: All antennas must be an electrical
1/2 (one half) wavelength in order to perform well...
These rules exist based upon 100 year old technology and
experimentation. Decades of experimentation and trial and
error have gone into these rules and many attempts to break them
have failed.... with the exception of...
Only two designs ....
The so called 'magnetic loop',... and the design I call the Cap-L
The loop has been well documented so I won't go into that here.
Some say "Its Just a T2LT antenna" aka coaxial vertical
dipole.
The Primary complaint I here others say about this design is
that its not radiating from the 'little stub' on the end of the
coax, but the coax itself! AKA the delay line... That is what
they say, simply because they've never seen one and it
Looks
like my design, a little... But, the calculations used to
make Survivor antennas, are NOT based upon conventional antenna
design formulas, the T2LT is. The coaxial dipole is simply
a piece of coax with the top 1/4 wave of the jacket stripped and
the lower 1/4 wave jacket is the other side of the dipole.
You need a choke at the bottom to terminate the lower length,
and that is similar to my 1SM series, But.....
I have proof that the coax is NOT the Primary radiator. I
have successfully built and tested a version of the Cap-L that
does NOT HAVE A DELAY LINE..... and it works equally well as its
older brother... So now we know that it works as
advertised and not as some people assume. There are
simple tests you can do with the basic antenna to prove that its
not radiating from the delay line too. You can bury the
delay line, or you can change orientation of the antenna
and watch the signal vary because of the polarization shift, all
the while the delay line is in a fixed position. It's too
bad that people become educated beyond thier ability to
understand. When you see performance right in front of
your eyes and deny it, well I believe its called
some form of insanity.
All I can say is don't let your knowledge get in the way of
learning.
Theory:
Any antenna is a transducer, or coupler to its medium. In
this case the medium is what I refer to as 'space' or 'either'
for lack of a better term. Therefor all antennas
'couple' your transmitters energy into space. (And the reverse
is true for your reciever)
How efficiently the antennas do that (radiate), is subject to a lot of
debate. The most commonly accepted idea is straight from
the engineering books covering coupling power from the load to
source. It says that the most efficient coupling occurs
when the most power can be delivered to the load. This
condition is usually met when the source and load impedances are
an exact match.
Trouble is, what is the exact impedance of 'space'?
For many, the commonly accepted answer is aproximately 377 ohms.
Wiki Link here This number is based upon
choosen
values in some of the equations. (see bottom of wiki) These
numbers represent, I'm sure, be best guess based on available
data at the time. I suspect that these values are in error
because the equations are based upon a little understood
principal of radiating electromagnetic fields. Sure there
are many formulas that chart time, intensity and direction of
these fields but these formulas are also based upon observations
of waves traveling in other mediums like water and light in a
vacuum. The truth is, NO One Knows Why this radiation
radiates! Ask anyone you know, professor or engineer "What
causes electromagnetic radiation to travel from one place to
another?" They don't know. The point is, we
are dealing with, on a daily basis, communications based upon a
radiation that is poorly understood. So, based upon
"choosen" numbers for equations and the lack of knowledge of why
this form of radiation even travels, I suggest to you that
there is a huge area of learning yet to be discovered.
After all, we are all still driving cars based on 100 year old
technology.
So if we take another look at the coupler idea, then maximum
energy transfer should be when an antennas impedance matches
'space'. Without making this too confusing, even the
antenna designers will tell you that antennas like a dipole have
a varying impedance all up and down its length. It just
depends on where you connect to it as to what impedance you get.
So the center fed dipole of 72 ohms or the vertical with 38
ohms, are only representations of "Feed Point" impedances and
have nothing to do with the coupling to space. With one
exception,... They must be coupling to it poorly, but at least
coupled, because the impendance of these antennas is a constantly
varying value all along its length..
One Last Thing: Technology has documented the "Feeding" of an
antenna extremely well. But that has very little to do
with the actual energy transfer to space. Why?
Because this impedance matching issue (to space) is totally ignored
(in basic antenna designs), thats
why.
But what if you can connect to space with a coupler that is more
closely matched to the impedance of space? By the way,
couplers are simply designed to 'couple' the signal, and
size is not usually considered as important in the design.
This is what the Survivor Antenna does, it couples to space.
And the proof is in the performance: Measuring gain of
slightly more than 2dbD over a conventional ground plane antenna
made with 1/4 elements tuned to resonance, my antennas
have consistantly shown more signal a.k.a. gain. As
measured on a Motorola commercial service monitor with tracking
generator and spectrum analyzer. Same distance, same coax,
same elevation, same surroundings, same power level for both
antennas.
I didn't say I knew what the exact impedance of space is.
I just know that the Cap-L works, and it works well.
So basically, the Cap-L functions like a coupler, just like any
small transformer with fields radiating from it, and orientation is
important. [Even an iron core transformer has fields
radiating from it] I build them to operate as verticals in thier
basic configuration, but they can be mounted horizontally for
NVIS or EMMCOMM work. That is, high angle sky wave
comms for close in contacts. It's been done.
The 1SM versions for sale here are capable of high performance
for thier size.
If you're wanting a design that renders high performance in a
small package, this is it.
Reference: Note that this design could not have been
possible without the help of my good friend Arthur Wentz, DL7AHW
who has freely contributed to my design by providing base
calculations and dimensions. Arthur consulted two
physicists for help in the design. You can google his site and
find information on how he builds a version of this design.
Arthur has spent many hours on these antennas and has been
copied many times. The microvert and roomcap designs are
modifications of his design.