New from the Emerging Technology Committee of the Northern California Chapter of APCO Intl.
Recent articles and white papers provided in the telecommunications community point out a unique design in antenna theory. Antennas for receiving radio frequencies have been around since the late 1800’s, over 130 years ago. Since that time, many new forms of transmitting signals and data have been developed and perfected. Satellites carry data over far distances, but only have so many time slots, and satellites available. If you are not a high priority user, you may not be able to use it. Copper and Fiber are fast, speed of light fast, and have been used since the first phones went in. Even with redundancy, we have all been affected by the contractor who puts a sign pole in the wrong spot and takes out a 600 pair fiber feed to a telecom hut. There have always been competing theories on technology, Edison vs. Tesla, Gates vs. Jobs, and so on. But now, there is a new antenna design being used is the commercial and military sectors.
A new antenna design claims to overcome the deficiencies in conventional antennas including their very large size. The antenna covers the 3.5 to 8 MHz spectrum for Near Vertical Incidence Signal (NVIS) communications. It is only 4 feet wide by 4 feet tall and is suitable for field mounting, rooftop and mobile mounts. It also includes an automatic tuner which is activated when it receives a low power RP signal. The antenna can be mounted remotely with DC power for the tuner being carried on the RF coax. Unlike a typical Hertz antenna, this antenna develops the electric and magnetic fields simultaneously. This is a true paradigm shift in antenna theory and design. The photo above shows the antenna without the radome.
If you are interested in reading more, Urgent Communications has an article they printed in June of 2013. It can be found by clicking here.
There are also two white papers you can find here, and here.
Emerging Technologies Committee