Hart said his work on the EH antenna dates to 1998. Prior to that, Hart wrote articles about the CFA for an amateur radio publication. Hart is CEO of the company and Bob Zimmerman is vice president of engineering. Representatives for both Crossed Field Antennas Ltd. and EH Antenna Systems have spoken at conventions in recent months to try to prove to broadcasters that the designs, which both manufacturers claim to be revolutionary, work as promised. Yet engineers continue to question those claims.
Caution appears warranted.
According to several antenna consultants contacted by RW, neither company has demonstrated, using controlled and accepted test methods, that their antennas work and are a viable replacement for the familiar AM broadcast tower. The inventors of both antennas have based their designs on the creation of a displacement current within the antenna. This displacement current is formed by exciting an electric voltage across the capacitive coupling between a base and a cylinder or cone portion of the antenna that, in turn, produces a magnetic field. RF or electro-magnetic radiation comprises both an electric field and a magnetic field. At the heart of the debate over the viability of these antennas is how the inventors are interpreting the mathematical theory contained primarily in Maxwell's equations of how antennas work.