The Shape of the Future
In my younger days I was a “HAM” radio operator, K1FJS. My hang out was the 20 meter band. Since we used crystals that were made to a specific frequency, it was easy to make a perfectly tuned antenna with some copper wire. You divided the speed of light (299,792,458 meters per second) by the frequency you wanted to target (in Hz). The result was in meters and you could make your piece of wire by using a quarter of this length.
That being said, the best antenna I ever used was the metal drainpipes and gutters on my family’s Cape Cod house. I contacted over 100 countries using this odd configuration and just 50 watts… as long as it didn’t rain or get covered by snow. The point here is that antennae have a way of combining their contorted radiating surfaces that can sometimes perform better than a straight piece of wire.
If you’ve ever broken a cell phone, you have no doubt seen the strange shaped antenna that makes communication between the phone and the tower possible. These oddly shaped conductors are designed by computers and usually can radiate signals on a broad range of frequencies, instead of just one. It’s a fairly new technology which only became viable in the last decade — about the time when your mobile phone became your cell phone.
A pioneer in this field is Nathan Cohen, the inventor and patent holder of fractal antennae. Nathan had his “drainpipe” moment when he fabricated an aluminum foil antenna using a fractal pattern to hide it from his landlord, who prohibited antennae on his property. Nathan was surprised that it worked at all, yet he successfully communicated with another “HAM” operator on the 2 meter band.
