Author Topic: Spray On Antenna  (Read 48364 times)

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Offline SionynTopic starter

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Spray On Antenna
« on: February 11, 2012, 08:07:32 pm »
eecs guy
 

Offline MarkS

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Re: Spray On Antenna
« Reply #1 on: February 11, 2012, 09:45:25 pm »
My (admittedly limited) understanding of antennas was that the size and shape was dictated by the desired wavelength of the signal. Is this incorrect or did they just rewrite what we thought we knew about RF transmission and reception? ???
 

Offline SionynTopic starter

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Re: Spray On Antenna
« Reply #2 on: February 11, 2012, 10:06:29 pm »
what i was thinking that  still i am very limited in black art of rf
eecs guy
 

Offline G7PSK

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Re: Spray On Antenna
« Reply #3 on: February 11, 2012, 10:24:41 pm »
I think the idea is is lots of little antennae equals one big antenna. But what caught my attention was he mentioned powering things like signs etc from radio waves. I cannot see the transmitting company's liking dirty great shadows in their signals from people loading their signals. In the sixty's the BBC had some one  prosecuted because they had set up an aerial array in the shadow of one of the TV transmitters and was lighting his house from the power. Apart from the load on the transmitter it also cast a shadow in the beam causing a signal blackout down stream and a lot of angry viewers.   
 

Offline amspire

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Re: Spray On Antenna
« Reply #4 on: February 11, 2012, 10:39:35 pm »
My (admittedly limited) understanding of antennas was that the size and shape was dictated by the desired wavelength of the signal. Is this incorrect or did they just rewrite what we thought we knew about RF transmission and reception? ???
They seem to be following the shapes of standard antenna design. The ones painted on the tree looked like standard dipoles, and with things like the iPhone antenna, they copied the Apple design.

I suppose a difference between a capacitive particle based antenna and a conductor based antenna is that each capacitive particle will be generating a local electric field, whereas in a conductor, there is no electric field. It sounds like this company wasn't expecting to find it as an advantage - they were expecting it to be worse then a standard conductor based antenna and that is what makes this interesting.

Richard
 

Offline NiHaoMike

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Re: Spray On Antenna
« Reply #5 on: February 11, 2012, 11:53:51 pm »
Adding capacitance in series with an antenna makes it look electrically "shorter", so the antenna must be physically longer for the same frequency. Maybe the advantage of a physically longer antenna offsets the lower conductivity of the paint.
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Offline amspire

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Re: Spray On Antenna
« Reply #6 on: February 11, 2012, 11:59:40 pm »
Adding capacitance in series with an antenna makes it look electrically "shorter", so the antenna must be physically longer for the same frequency. Maybe the advantage of a physically longer antenna offsets the lower conductivity of the paint.
The paint has no conductivity I gather. It just uses the capacitive coupling between the particles.
 

Offline Fraser

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Re: Spray On Antenna
« Reply #7 on: February 12, 2012, 12:03:14 am »
I've been an RF specialist in my working life for over 24 years and this presentation had me scratching my head. A lot more detail would need to be provided on this so called capacitor antenna before I stop believing this is just a sales pitch full of bunkum ! The speaker keeps referring to tests with the Government in order to gain credibility (a very common ploy in my experience and totally meaningless)...he does not state which departments and the qualification of the witnesses to observe such a test. I have had many demonstrations of so called miracle RF technology which, when tested at our establishment, turned out to be total piffle. You can't defeat the laws of physics and RF obeys those laws.

I hope this is a new discovery, it would be great if it did what they claim, but for the moment I remain totally unconvinced of both the principle of operation and test results. I had to laugh when the speaker claimed that Police transmitter whips get red hot when transmitting....er no they don't ...that would be the RF burn you have just given yourself ! As for them being hot due to radiation Resistance of the whip...total crap. There may be a slight increase in whip skin temperature due to RF radiation, but hot ? no way. That guy discredited himself with that one statement.... maybe he's just a dumb salesman looking for investment in a get rich quick scheme.

As for harvesting power using the technology in order to power an RF rebro node...... I don't think so ! Maybe a passive RF re-radiator would be possible but nothing more.

An interesting little video but I'll not hold my breath waiting for this amazing technology to appear in the marketplace.
« Last Edit: February 12, 2012, 12:41:32 am by Aurora »
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Offline amspire

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Re: Spray On Antenna
« Reply #8 on: February 12, 2012, 12:27:26 am »
I had to laugh when the speaker claimed that Police transmitter whips get red hot when transmitting....er no they don't ...that would be the RF burn you have just given yourself ! As for them being hot due to radiation Resistance of the whip...total crap. There may be a slight increase in whip skin temperature due to RF radiation, but hot ? no way.
That antenna heating story sounded very odd to me too. In the back of my mind was the thought that a mobile phone company may be prepared to pay a very large amount of money to secure this technology, just in case it does work. There were no graphs of RF field comparison between conventional and their new antenna's. When they were comparing their spray on antenna on the tree to a standard antenna, where was the photo of the standard antenna?

They seem to have succeeded in in getting widespread attention with only a bad Youtube video, and an uninformative website that looks like it took a few hours to write.

Richard
« Last Edit: February 12, 2012, 12:37:33 am by amspire »
 

Offline Lightages

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Re: Spray On Antenna
« Reply #9 on: February 12, 2012, 04:23:02 am »
Well, right out of the box this guy claims twice the distance with the same power, or the same size, implied the same distance, with half the power. Huh? First part means nothing as who knows what the change in antenna physical design and size would be. The second part implies that the new antenna material is 4x more efficient than the old material...... just by changing the material.....

He then makes some crazy statement that the new material will transmit from the depths of the oceans into outer space without effort. Waffly bs if I ever heard it.

Then he claims "an order of magnitude better" against some unknown geometry with their painted dipole of tree bark. Well if the original standard antenna was a 1/16 wave base loaded stub antenna for a walkie talkie then yes very possible. So what?

A cop car antenna gets hot enough to burn you and stays that way even a few seconds after the transmission stops? What are they using in cop cars? 1000W pumping into antenna that has enough thermal inertia to stay hot for seconds after and is so inefficient that it heats up that quickly too? Transmit for a minute and you would have a nice bright melting antenna.

A material that is sprayed on and spreads out in just the right pattern... regardless of the surface being painted.... I guess he means random.

"a capacitor is very efficient if energy is flowing through it very quickly" Its a good thing that he didn't use any slow energy then.

They transmitted to an airplane 14 miles overhead. Or, in feet, around 72,000 feet. It is good they could afford to have an ER-2 (U2) flying around overhead to do this test.

The next one is even more ridiculous. An RF ID tag with nothing but their paint laid over the antenna that existed transmitted around 20,000 times more power!

Next, an iPhone! Wow, they gained a whole 100mW (20dBm). What is the output of the iPhone? If I understand things correctly a cell phone has a maximum output of 500mW.

The underwater test is meaningless. First of all the US does not use 50MHz to communicate under water so any antenna that he claimed was being used by the military was not for use underwater. The military uses ELF waves in the single digit Hertz. Their testing was flawed from that just that point alone, or claimed test.

And the best one of all, he throws in the "free energy out of thin air" card and improved efficiency for anything that uses electricity.

wesolveforx is quite the website  :o
« Last Edit: February 12, 2012, 04:29:32 am by Lightages »
 

Offline BravoV

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Re: Spray On Antenna
« Reply #10 on: February 12, 2012, 04:29:21 am »
Quote
....the new material will transmit from the depths of the oceans into outer space without effort.

Suddenly it smells like a serpentine grease.  ;D

Offline MarkS

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Re: Spray On Antenna
« Reply #11 on: February 12, 2012, 04:37:25 am »
I'd be willing to buy a can to test, but you have to call for a quote. Hmm... Don't think so.
 

Offline G7PSK

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Re: Spray On Antenna
« Reply #12 on: February 12, 2012, 09:53:29 am »
Quote
[/And the best one of all, he throws in the "free energy out of thin air" card and improved efficiency for anything that uses electricity.quote]

There was a case in London in the late 50's or early 60's where a man was prosecuted for illegally obtaining power from the television transmitter he had a large array of aerials on his roof and was lighting his house with the power. This was within a quarter of a mile of the crystal palace transmitter. In the UK there are laws about using some one else's transmitted RF energy for any other purpose than that which was intended. So gathering "free" power is out whatever your antennae is made of.
 

Offline Fraser

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Re: Spray On Antenna
« Reply #13 on: February 12, 2012, 11:12:23 am »
The case of stealing RF energy that I am aware of related to Droitwich. I believe the LW transmitter is currently 400kW at 198kHz. From memory Droitwich used to put out more power  (when the event is said to have occurred) but the BBC lowered the power some years ago. The perpetrator was very close to the aerial farm. He built an RF loop tuned to 200kHz (Radio 4 used to be on 200kHz) in his loft and it understandably harvested energy from the near field of the transmission. Its a little different to what the speaker proposes in his story of the future !

Update:

OK, I did a quick Google search and found this site that comments on a plausible method of harvesting energy from the RF spectrum...interesting work.

 http://www.gizmag.com/scavenging-ambient-electromagnetic-energy/19163/


It looks like RCA, with all their amazing R&D capability, have investigated the concept and decided not to take it to market:

http://www.gadgetsgeek.ly/2011/01/07/ces-2011-hey-rca-how%E2%80%99s-that-airnergy-wifi-charger-coming-along-oh-no-where-to-be-seen-what-a-surprise%E2%80%A6/

I can find no news articles detailing the man stealing RF energy from Droitwich so that may be an urban myth. It does seem plausible if you live in the RF near field of a powerfull transmitter though. There does seem to be some credance to the Crystal Palace story though.

Aurora
« Last Edit: February 12, 2012, 02:45:08 pm by Aurora »
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Offline Dieselrunner88

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Re: Spray On Antenna
« Reply #14 on: February 12, 2012, 01:29:32 pm »
stealing energy is not an urban myth a friend of a friend (no not me) almost went to jail for stealing electricity from high voltage lines 1/4 mile away from a secret device he set up. he won't tell anyone what it was. but it was on his property so he just had to pay for the electricity.
Scavenging for parts.  What is this?  oh well I'll throw it in with the rest of the unknown stuff!
 

Offline siliconmix

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Re: Spray On Antenna
« Reply #15 on: February 12, 2012, 01:32:19 pm »
no mention of impedance matching.antenna polarity.what a load of bull
 

Offline G7PSK

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Re: Spray On Antenna
« Reply #16 on: February 12, 2012, 06:03:19 pm »
I have see pictures in the past of the array used by the man at Crystal Palace. I would think that if a 500KV line crosses your property it would be easy to steal power with some form of coil running parallel to the line if you just want light all you have to do is plant one end of fluorescent tubes in the ground underneath and they will glow. I have stood underneath pylons in the UK and you can feel the electricity and smell the ozone in the air. 
 

Offline NiHaoMike

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Re: Spray On Antenna
« Reply #17 on: February 12, 2012, 08:07:22 pm »
What would it be considered if you just connected your "collector" to ground (or for an antenna, a dummy load) and then claimed that it was to shield your building from the electromagnetic waves?
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Offline caroper

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Re: Spray On Antenna
« Reply #18 on: February 12, 2012, 08:33:50 pm »
At least he didn't say they painted it on trees to make trunk calls :)

Offline tinhead

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Re: Spray On Antenna
« Reply #19 on: February 12, 2012, 09:06:39 pm »
A cop car antenna gets hot enough to burn you and stays that way even a few seconds after the transmission stops?

sure, there are so many things possible in USA, just think about Pentagon and 9/11

Statements like that are typical for marketing meetings, so don't take every single word too seriously.

They transmitted to an airplane 14 miles overhead. Or, in feet, around 72,000 feet. It is good they could afford to have an ER-2 (U2) flying around overhead to do this test.

what he means is 14 miles distance, not directly straight over the head!

The underwater test is meaningless. First of all the US does not use 50MHz to communicate under water so any antenna that he claimed was being used by the military was not for use underwater. The military uses ELF waves in the single digit Hertz.

oh well, no idea what US Navy is using or not, but a quick google is giving a very clear "yes" for that
http://www.naval-technology.com/projects/ohio/



I've quoted for price, if this is not working they will have to pay me back so no risk at all.
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Offline Simon

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Re: Spray On Antenna
« Reply #20 on: February 12, 2012, 10:27:52 pm »
At least he didn't say they painted it on trees to make trunk calls :)

hahahahahaha.

I call total bullshit on this, he looked so freekin insecure and no wonder with all the claptrap he was coming out with. Lots of outlandish statements but no facts. He is also ignorant as he talks as though he has no understanding of how RF propagates, to double the distance you need to quadruple the power, so his claims are far more unbelievable than he thinks. As far as i know an antenna is an antenna providing your not making it out of wood they all perform about the same (within an order of magnitude). If anything inefficiency is down to poor impedance matching. I think he is verging on claiming perpetual motion (being able to achieve more than there is power to achieve)
 

Offline Lightages

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Re: Spray On Antenna
« Reply #21 on: February 12, 2012, 11:28:22 pm »

what he means is 14 miles distance, not directly straight over the head!


OK, I will give a point back for a possible misinterpretation on that one.


oh well, no idea what US Navy is using or not, but a quick google is giving a very clear "yes" for that
http://www.naval-technology.com/projects/ohio/


I do know that the US Navy does not use 50MHz for underwater communication, and that they do use giant antenna arrays to transmit ELF waves so they can be received by submarines. Believe it or not I actually worked on systems to develop the hydrid ICs to do this in the mid 90s for one of their research branches.
 

Offline amspire

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Re: Spray On Antenna
« Reply #22 on: February 13, 2012, 01:54:00 am »
I think Chamtech Operations actually have a real product, but their presentation is so vague that it is meaningless as to what the product can actually do.

Totally brilliant too!

They have been patenting antenna designs for several years and no-one cares less.

Then they release a video that appears to be making incredible claims, and all of a sudden, all the top technology sites are saying that phones will become 100 (20dB) times more sensitive, and black spot problems are totally over - all thanks to Chamtech. As far as I can see, all these technology blog sites seem to state this as incontestable fact.  It has costed Chamtech nothing to get a priceless world wide exposure. This is a dream come true for a tiny unknown company. I think that they have discovered that they do much better releasing anecdotal non-scientific information, then precise lab-tested information.

For example, the antenna-on-the tree that was better then the "commercial" antenna. If they were using a RF scanner to receive the signal from the plane and they were comparing a tuned vertical dipole spray antenna plugged into the scanner to the scanner's minature wideband omini-directional non-polarised antenna, then of course the dipole will win over the "commercial" antenna by a huge margin. Pinning aluminum cooking foil to the tree would probably be even better!

It appears that Chamtech Operations related to Chameleon Technologies Operations Enterprise Inc. but chasing the companies further is not that easy, as so many organizations and products use the names "Chamtech" and "Chameleon Technologies". There is for example a Chameleon Technologies that have been working on nanoparticle coatings for things like military planes that can change color for camouflage, but I don't see any direct connection to Chamtech.

Chamtech seems to have been working on different new antenna designs, and these sprays. A year ago, they seemed to have a metallic particle based spray antenna, where on drying, the particles welded themselves together to make a low resistance conductor. Sounds just like a lot of other sprays that are already available. Now they seem to be talking about biodegradable nanoparticle capacitors instead of the metal particles.

They say that they have patents for this technology, but I could not see any - perhaps they are pending patents. They do have antenna design patents, so there may be some vague wording to imply that their current patents are related to the spray on antenna, even when they are not.

Back to the technology, until we see some results from proper tests, we don't have a clue how well it works. It seems extremely unlikely they can transmit any better then a properly tuned conventional antenna with negligible reflected power, unless it is one of those police ones that strangely get very hot. (Another Chamtech design?) Once 1W of RF signal gets away from the antenna, then 1W of RF energy is 1W of RF energy whatever the antenna, isn't it? So the only way they could get a 20dB (100 times) improvement is to be far more sensitive in receiving signals. Very unlikely, but I could not say impossible.

The one interesting thing right now is if they can make a totally non-conductive antenna that works almost as well as a metal antenna, that is interesting. Not interesting enough to get posts on Engadget etc, which is what the company obviously wants. I would have thought the particle-to-particle capacitance would be too low to make the spray useful for carrying power, so if they can do it, I want to play with it.  Love some specs first though.

Richard
 

Offline Simon

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Re: Spray On Antenna
« Reply #23 on: February 13, 2012, 06:58:04 am »
I didn't think you could make an antenna out of capacitors, basically they have designed a quick drying metallic/conductive spray - woo hoo, big deal ? I've never heard debates about antenna material, about antenna design yes but not the material, I guess copper is ideal but see a lot of aluminium due to weight, cost and it don't rust.

If you think about that and then listen to that guy he sounds well ignorant, he's either uttering rubbish or needs to change the presentation but if he's go nothing to put in....... I have to say that all the way through all I was thinking was bullshit, bullshit, bullshit, he was using all the hallmarks of a scam.
 

Offline MarkS

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Re: Spray On Antenna
« Reply #24 on: February 13, 2012, 07:08:09 pm »
What really made me doubt this while watching the video was the lack of data. There were no graphs. No numbers (other than his statements about his product). No ability to compare his statements to anything at all. It was 100% fluff, geared towards the unlearned.

It was comparable to this:



At least the Retro Encabulator is supposed to be a joke!
« Last Edit: February 13, 2012, 07:13:44 pm by MarkS »
 


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