Spray On Antenna - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: MarkS
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 11, 2012, 09:45:25 pm
content: 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?

author: Sionyn
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 11, 2012, 10:06:29 pm
content: what i was thinking that still i am very limited in black art of rf

author: G7PSK
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 11, 2012, 10:24:41 pm
content: 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.

author: amspire
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 11, 2012, 10:39:35 pm
content: Quote from: MarkS on February 11, 2012, 09:45:25 pmThey 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

author: NiHaoMike
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 11, 2012, 11:53:51 pm
content: 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.

author: amspire
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 11, 2012, 11:59:40 pm
content: Quote from: NiHaoMike on February 11, 2012, 11:53:51 pmThe paint has no conductivity I gather. It just uses the capacitive coupling between the particles.

author: Fraser
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 12, 2012, 12:03:14 am
content: 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.

author: amspire
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 12, 2012, 12:27:26 am
content: Quote from: Aurora on February 12, 2012, 12:03:14 amThat 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

author: Lightages
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 12, 2012, 04:23:02 am
content: 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

author: BravoV
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 12, 2012, 04:29:21 am
content: QuoteSuddenly it smells like a serpentine grease.

author: MarkS
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 12, 2012, 04:37:25 am
content: I'd be willing to buy a can to test, but you have to call for a quote. Hmm... Don't think so.

author: G7PSK
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 12, 2012, 09:53:29 am
content: Quote

author: Fraser
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 12, 2012, 11:12:23 am
content: 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 RFnear fieldof a powerfull transmitter though. There does seem to be some credance to the Crystal Palace story though.Aurora

author: Dieselrunner88
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: February 12, 2012, 01:29:32 pm
content: 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.

author: siliconmix
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 12, 2012, 01:32:19 pm
content: no mention of impedance matching.antenna polarity.what a load of bull

author: G7PSK
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 12, 2012, 06:03:19 pm
content: 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.

author: NiHaoMike
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 12, 2012, 08:07:22 pm
content: 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?

author: caroper
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: February 12, 2012, 08:33:50 pm
content: At least he didn't say they painted it on trees to make trunk calls

author: tinhead
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 12, 2012, 09:06:39 pm
content: Quote from: Lightages on February 12, 2012, 04:23:02 amsure, there are so many things possible in USA, just think about Pentagon and 9/11Statements like that are typical for marketing meetings, so don't take every single word too seriously.Quote from: Lightages on February 12, 2012, 04:23:02 amwhat he means is 14 miles distance, not directly straight over the head!Quote from: Lightages on February 12, 2012, 04:23:02 amoh well, no idea what US Navy is using or not, but a quick google is giving a very clear "yes" for thathttp://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.

author: Simon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 12, 2012, 10:27:52 pm
content: Quote from: caroper on February 12, 2012, 08:33:50 pmhahahahahaha.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)

author: Lightages
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 12, 2012, 11:28:22 pm
content: Quote from: tinhead on February 12, 2012, 09:06:39 pmOK, I will give a point back for a possible misinterpretation on that one.Quote from: tinhead on February 12, 2012, 09:06:39 pmI 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.

author: amspire
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 13, 2012, 01:54:00 am
content: 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

author: Simon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 13, 2012, 06:58:04 am
content: 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.

author: MarkS
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 13, 2012, 07:08:09 pm
content: 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!

author: Simon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 13, 2012, 07:47:50 pm
content: that is a very very good pisstake of videos like the one being discussed

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 13, 2012, 09:44:09 pm
content: Quote from: Aurora on February 12, 2012, 11:12:23 amWhat a shock!Dave.

author: Simon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 13, 2012, 10:01:24 pm
content: 40 dollars for a battery with some dangling wire attached ? - ON YOUR BIKE MATE

author: gregariz
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 13, 2012, 11:11:18 pm
content: Quote from: Simon on February 13, 2012, 06:58:04 amLooks like nonsense to me, probably a can of nickel paint.There are antenna's made out of caps. You can make an antenna out of any type of plasma. The idea is that by leveling out the current pattern (with cap phase changes) you can raise the effective efficiency of the structure (ie pattern is directly proportional to current distribution for most common antennas). This works up to a point but assumes that the antenna is relatively electrically small which is innefficient to begin with. I can tell you that this technology has no serious place in current antenna research. There are a number of other similiar ideas out there. One is the EH antenna concept which is a very short monopole like antenna. There was considerable debate about it and the company even had a russian physicist come up with a highly mathematical (and difficult to disprove) alteration to electromagnetic theory. Its pretty well been debunked now however basically because people noticed that the thing's performance was attrocious with a balun on the cable. What was happening was that the actual antenna was the coax that was feeding the antenna. It wouldnt surprise me if that can of nickel paint works quite well under some circumstances when fed by a transmission line which is acting as the antenna.I take my hat off to them. Sounds like they have a few physicists on staff with the right line of shit. If they can make that pitch to a few clueless investors and suck a few million out of them, I say go for it.

author: amspire
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 14, 2012, 03:03:29 am
content: I am sure it is not simply a conductive spray paint, and Chamtech do have very capable RF designers. I believe that the project came out of a military request for a product that was a conformal spray-on antenna. The conformal requirement probably made it very difficult to use a conductive paint, as any metallic particles on the surface would allow corrosion to get into the coating.I was thinking some more about what the product actually is. Notice how they were often painting over the tops of existing copper antenna's?I think it is exactly what Anthony Sutara said it was - a spray containing micro-capacitor particles. It may even be that a conductor is always needed under the spray - he never actually said it replaces the need for a conductor. Or if the paint does have conductive particles, it may be that they settle on the painted surface leaving the suspended capacitive particles and conformal coating over the top of the conductive layer.What I think this product does is to change the electrical permittivity in the space between the conductor and the air. This is a known method of improving the performance of small antenna's, but it has usually been done by encasing the antenna in a material, instead of a spray or printable ink.Here is a document talking about using materials with different electrical permittivity and magnetic permeability in antenna design:http://www.mitre.org/work/tech_papers/2011/11_0837/11_0837.pdfWe are still left with no quantitative numbers of actual RF performances, but it is technically possible to change antenna performance by providing a high permittivity layer between the conductor and the air. Perhaps this will not change the antenna world, but Chemtech may be the first on the market with a paint with a high permittivity, and obviously that want to push that for all it is worth. I don't think it is a hoax, unless you want to include the stupid reporting of the story by the technical bloggers and news sites. I think they have a real product that could have some potentially interesting uses.Richard

author: vk6zgo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 14, 2012, 03:27:11 am
content: Quote from: amspire on February 14, 2012, 03:03:29 amNo,sorry,Richard,but if it works as you suggest,why don't they tell us that,rather than spout a lot of mumbo-jumbo.The guy in the video was supposed to work for "Scamtech",err,Chamtech,so the nonsense isn't from bloggers & news sites,it purports to be direct from the company itself.There are a lot of scammers out there when it comes to antennas,as well as some quite sincere people who are pushing nonsenseantennas because they believe they have found a way to defeat the laws of physics.The patter is classic scam-speak.Notice he says "the government"----Not the US Navy,or Air Force,or NASA( I guess he's a Yank!),or even the local Mayor!

author: MarkS
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 14, 2012, 04:58:20 am
content: I've heard very similar pitches from the free energy folks. They offer just enough data to reel you in, but not enough to make an informed decision. All of the data that is given supports their conclusions with any other data conspicuously missing. They often will make claims that they welcome others to test their device and sometimes ask for partners, but then fail to deliver.If this is so revolutionary, why no actual reviews? I did a Google search, but all I can find are references to the video in the original post. No one has actually tried the spray and posted anything about it. Anywhere. I really did intend to buy a can and test it or send it to someone better set up to test it, but I then found that you can only buy it directly from Chamtech and to top it off, you have to call for a quote. To quoteAdmiral Ackbar... It's a trap! Either someone wanting to buy a small quantity for testing wont get past the person answering the phone, or the price will be so ridiculously high that it is unaffordable. I also suspect that a NDA will be required prior to purchase.

author: amspire
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 14, 2012, 05:01:34 am
content: I have no knowledge that Chamtech has a military contract, but I do know that DARPA (The US Defense Advanced Resaerch Projects Agency) have been looking for a working spray-on antenna for military use, and I believe that this was the motivation for Chamtech's work. Rett Spencer of Chamtech has reportedly said that the spray-on antenna was conceived when "Chamtech was contacted by the US Military to help them create a conforming antenna for special ops since traditional antenna systems were bulky and hard to hide from the enemy". A year ago, they had a conductive spray. This year, they have the capacitive particle spray. Are you saying that all of this is totally a lie?If you read my previous posts, I have criticized Anthony's presentation for the lack in essential details. I am not suggesting that this spray will suddenly increase all antenna's by 20dB.But that does not mean that this is could be an interesting product that could have some useful applications. I have heard people from companies like Microsoft come out with total rubbish, but I have never accused Microsoft of being a scam, just because of one employee's comment. No way will I claim that Chamtech is a scamming company, until I see some proof that it is. I am not going to condemn a company just because one marketing guy puts the best possible spin on a not-quite released product.Now, how can you say that the nonsense isn't from the bloggers. Looks at some of the blogger's headlines:Spray-on Antenna to revolutionize the mobile industry (Was originally "Spray-on Antenna could revolutionize the mobile industry" but some bloggers decided "to" was better")Spray on Antenna can get rid of ugly cell towerSpray On Antenna Kit for Signal AnywhereMagical Spray Makes Everything an AntennaSpray-on Antenna - Wireless in a CanWhen I looked before, I was reading in one blog how the Spray-on Antenna means there will be no more mobile black spots thanks to this spray! To take the results of a single test, like the iPhone test, and to amplify that as a general finding is complete irresponsible reporting. You seem to be blaming the fingers of these bloggers on Chamtech as if the bloggers had no brains and couldn't control what they typed.I don't like Anthony's presentation, but it was at Google's Solve for X which I gather is a place for broad ideas and rather then details. It is not a place that you present specification sheets which is what we want to see. I do not know what the spray can do. I do not know its permittivity, its dissipation factor vs frequency.I am much more interested in looking for ideas that could be interesting, then totally dumping ideas outright just because they may be useless. If Chamtech are scammers, please give me some information to show that they do not have a spray containing capacitor particles. If they do have such a spray, I want some more information, as it could be unique and useful.Richard.

author: MarkS
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 14, 2012, 05:07:46 am
content: I agree with you here, which is why I will at least entertain the free energy folks:Quote from: amspire on February 14, 2012, 05:01:34 amBut I disagree with you here:Quote from: amspire on February 14, 2012, 05:01:34 amIt is up to the person making the claims to provide evidence that they are correct. It isn't for those of us who watched that crappy video to provide proof. Apart from that video, Chamtech has been silent. No info anywhere. Absolute silence. They should be handing this stuff out to independent reviewers freely, and yet, nothing. It raises red flags.

author: amspire
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 14, 2012, 05:34:29 am
content: Quote from: MarkS on February 14, 2012, 05:07:46 amThat is why I have just emailed them to see if they can give some more information. I will post anything they send.If they do nothing, well, so be it. Their funeral.

author: gregariz
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 14, 2012, 06:13:37 am
content: Quote from: amspire on February 14, 2012, 03:03:29 amAccording tohttp://www.neowin.net/news/the-amazing-spray-on-antennaAccording to Chamtech's co-founder Anthony Sutera, he and his team came up with it in his living room two years ago. It works by manipulating magnetic and radio signals through mysterious organic materials, and you can spray it on any virtually any surface and hook into it with a flexible circuit cable.That must of been between training snipershttp://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=12009441and between developing sexy pink travel caseshttp://raffonedesign.com/home.html

author: vk6zgo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 14, 2012, 08:13:50 am
content: Another interesting URL:-http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=23274062Maybe not the same Anthony Sutera?

author: Simon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 14, 2012, 10:22:56 pm
content: I think this may have started as a method of making a quick make shift antenna, like for the military, no need to carry antenna just have a can of spray and spray it on the nearest tree and whack a nail on the end of the wire into the tree: fine.His claims of beating current antenna technology performance are piffle !!!, my guess is maybe the military inquired about a potential product and either it did not meet their requirements or they changed their minds, and then some bright spark in the sales department decided to flog it off as something else and some poor sod who looks like a bumbling young version of Kevin Costner gets sent out to make presentations with a written / memorized script but does not even know what he is talking about.considering that RF radiation goes down to 25% every time you double your distance from the source and he is talking of orders of magnitude increased in power/sensitivity (he never specified) and an order of magnitude is something big not like doubling it he frankly has no idea of the sheer bullshit he is coming out with and is clearly just going off a script.

author: vk6zgo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 15, 2012, 01:25:32 am
content: The thing is,he is supposed to be high up in Management,& involved with the design.If you look at my link,you will find an Anthony Sutera as President of a company purporting to have made breakthroughs in Aviation.Yet another Anthony Sutera was involved in some scheme to give people Combat training.Either the Sutera clan are extremely fruitful,or it just might be the same bloke!

author: amspire
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 15, 2012, 01:59:58 am
content: Quote from: vk6zgo on February 15, 2012, 01:25:32 amIt is the same guy. Yes he is a very busy young man. He does hold patents in turbine design, secure near filed communication, headset design. Either he is pretty bright, or has the knack of finding other people who are pretty bright to work with. Definitely an entrepreneur.I have been trying to locate any of the patents that supposedly exist for the spray on paint, and no luck. Of course they could have done the patents under a new company name that I do not know about. no reply yet to my email yesterday to Chamtech for more information, but my email wouldn't be high on their priority list.By the way, I looked into that claim from Anthony Sutera about the police antenna heating up. It may not be that far fetched at all. It looks like the police radios can be over 100W RF output, and the frequency bands can be very broad, so they cannot used a highly tuned antenna. A 95% efficient antenna is pretty good, and that could still be dissipating over 5W of heat. The police radios operate on several bands - an example is 136-174MHz on some Motorola police radios. They won't use the whole band themselves, but they may want the ability to talk to other services in the range, like fire, ambulance, civil defense, military, etc.I am not an antenna designer, but to design a compact broadband antenna that maintained the VSWR at a comfortable level for the transmitter over the whole band, couldn't efficiency drop to under 90% - that could mean 10W of heat in the antenna? That would be a pretty hot antenna. It doesn't make Anthony's argument any more valid, as 10% efficiency losses is only a 0.5dB loss - hardly noticeable.Richard

author: vk6zgo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 15, 2012, 04:00:55 am
content: "It is the same guy. Yes he is a very busy young man. He does hold patents in turbine design, secure near filed communication, headset design. Either he is pretty bright, or has the knack of finding other people who are pretty bright to work with. Definitely an entrepreneur"Haven't you entertained the third possibility,that he is a Con Man?The site I linked to was highly suspicious of his associate's claims of academic achievements.OK,that doesn't mean that Anthony is guilty by association,but someone who claims amazing improvements in various fields,but doesn't provide any sensible data is surely subject to some doubt!You are definitely "nice guys" other forums have not been as kind.(QRZ.com,for instance)Re the police radios,they really only use small segments of the potential frequency range provided by the Radio in any one service,& antennas are optimised for that segment.The cop radios have a low duty cycle--the police officers aren't talking all the time,so any heating would be dissipated fairly fast.

author: amspire
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 15, 2012, 05:14:42 am
content: Quote from: vk6zgo on February 15, 2012, 04:00:55 amIs is possible. Doesn't mean he is not bright.QuoteThat was one person he started a company with back in 2001, wasn't it? I am not going to condemn someone because he was associated with a guy who 11 years ago gave a misleading resume.QuoteI have been in startup tech companies. It is a tightrope walk to survive. I probably would be shocked if I heard what some of our sales people were promising in order to sell our products at the time. I am not going to try and damage a company based on suspicions, and some over-enthusiastic claims in what was obviously a sales presentation.Also, as I remember, at the start, you give as little as possible of any real confidential secrets unless someone is offering real money and a signed contract. Anthony sure didn't give much away in terms of facts.If I am going to start publicly label someone as a fake, I am going to do it with real evidence. Up till them, I am very happy to see if there are any useful ideas, and I think in this case, that any company who hands over lots of money without consulting their own designers and engineers would be unbelievably stupid. Assuming Chamtech are genuinely making their spray available, it would not be that hard to do some tests.QuoteThat's why Anthony said the antennas were hot if you touched them straight after transmitting. What he said about the antenna getting hot was bagged in this forum as nonsense, but it could easily be totally true.What is not true is that the heat demonstrates that conventional antennas are badly inefficient, and he did seem to be implying that his material suffers from close to no dielectric losses in a strong RF field, which sounds impossible. If a conventional antenna is getting a poor 75% of the RF energy into the air, and Chamtech could achieve 100%, it would still be a hardly noticeable improvement.Richard.

author: Simon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 15, 2012, 06:50:58 am
content: no one is disputing that police antennas get hot and it is because a lot of power is shoved into them for a brief period of time and it can gtake that thermal load and will dissipate it in time for the next transmission. But this guy is trying to say that the antennas are crap (not that they are effectively being abused and still work well) and that his are better.

author: vk6zgo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 15, 2012, 07:59:34 am
content: Sarge!,Unc! where are you!I'm tired of being the heavy on this thread!

author: gregariz
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 15, 2012, 05:15:00 pm
content: The ornamental design patents are available here;http://www.google.com/search?q=chamtech&tbm=pts&tbo=1&hl=enhttp://www.google.com/patents?id=VDcBAgAAEBAJ&printsec=abstract#v=onepage&q&f=falsehttp://www.google.com/patents?id=kP4AAgAAEBAJ&printsec=abstract#v=onepage&q&f=falsehttp://www.google.com/patents?id=UzcBAgAAEBAJ&printsec=abstract#v=onepage&q&f=falsehttp://www.google.com/patents?id=j_4AAgAAEBAJ&printsec=abstract#v=onepage&q&f=falsehttp://www.google.com/patents?id=jv4AAgAAEBAJ&printsec=abstract#v=onepage&q&f=false

author: vk6zgo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 16, 2012, 12:31:29 am
content: I think the National Socialist party may be able to claim prior use of a very similar pattern to that in the first patent.to say nothing of the Ancient Indians!

author: gregariz
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 16, 2012, 12:47:43 am
content: Mr Yagi might also have something to say about the first one.With regard to that TTR-HP company that he used to run in the link above... just as a general interest it appears they all ended up in court;http://www.legalmetric.com/cases/patent/utd/utd_204cv00677.htmlMore recently it was shut down for failing to file returns and is being sued by Nascarhttp://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/board.aspx?board_id=3656

author: amspire
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 16, 2012, 03:00:49 am
content: Quote from: gregariz on February 16, 2012, 12:47:43 amWhat is this meant to be? A court case prosecuted by different company that Anthony co-founded involving an injunction against a failed company that was dismissed by the judge simply because a similar case had been filed in the State court?Wow!The TTR HD/Aero Performance company seemed to be a genuine company that made a good product. Seems it was good enough for NASCAR to want to use it. The company failed in 2009. That proves what?

author: vk6zgo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 16, 2012, 08:45:37 am
content: Going back to the "antennas heating up".I thought a bit about it.I am not an antenna guru,but I think I have pretty much covered the situation in the followingIf you think I'm talking crap,please consult one of the standard texts on antennas!Antennas which are operating off resonance look reactive----- Capacitive for short antennas,& Inductive for long ones.An antenna thus may be R -jX for the first instance,& R+jX for the second.The value R in the above will be made up of R(losses) + R (radiation).Where:-R (losses) is normal resistance,& will remain the same over a large range of frequencies--it is normally for a vertical,earth resistance.The resistance of the antenna itself for a metal antenna is so small as to be negliglble.(It may not be so in a paint antenna)R (radiation) is the imaginary resistance which accounts for the"loss" which makes up the radiation.Although it is not a "real" resistance,it meets all the other requirements of resistance.When antennas are operated off resonance,the value of R(radiation) changes from the resonant value,so as well as X changing,so does R,BUT the loss part of R does not change!An antenna which is not matched will reflect part of the RF drive to the Transmitter.The reflected voltage & current waves are not in phase with each other,or with the incident wave at the load end of the feeder,but each combines with the incident waves at various points along the feeder,either adding or subtracting ,so that current or voltage maxima & minima appear along the feeder.The voltage ones are better known to the general public--the famous VSWR!Where current maxima appear,I^2 R losses occur due to the series resistance of the feeder,& when voltage maxima occur, lossesdue to insulation leakage occur.--- The feeder gets warm,not the antenna.If the Transmitter really is 50 ohms output impedance.the reflected signal is ultimately terminated,so there is no total loss of power,apart from the feeder losses already incurred.But wait,there's more!----Modern solid state transmitters are equipped with a circuit which reduces the power output when confronted with a high SWR,so if the antenna is that badly off tune,the 100watt? will be reduced to a lower level.Even if the antenna could become hot from being off resonance,there would be less power available to make it hot.For quite a few years,I worked at a medium frequency AM Broadcast station which used a "Dual Mast".This device was a top loaded vertical radiator,around 150m high,made of painted,galvanised steel,resting at the base on a very large insulator (about the size of a 200l drum).The antenna was fed with a 55kW ,& a 10kW Transmitter,on different MW frequencies,via a combining unit.Somebody noticed that the insulator had some kind of "scunge" on various parts of its surface & we were sent after closedown to scrub the insulator.The thing had been running for around 19 hours straight,but by the time we got set up to do the job--say 3/4 of an hour,the metal of the mast was cold.In fact,everythingwas bloody cold!If you want a reason to reassess your career path,lying on your back under tons of metal on a cold night,scrubbing an insulator with "Bon Ami" & distilled water will do it!

author: amspire
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 16, 2012, 11:37:29 am
content: Found an Amateur talking about mobile VHF antenna's.http://www.k0bg.com/options.htmlQuoteSo 75 watts is enough to burn out many antenna's, and the police radios can easily be 110W at 13.8V - more at the maximum battery voltage over 14 volts..I think the difference between fixed solid metal antenna's and flexible antennas made form helical copper wire or straight wire running inside a fiberglass cover, and various loading coils, is that the copper wire gauge is often thin enough to heat up. In the example mentioned in the article above, the antenna used about #24 wire - that is 0.02" thick. Add skin effect and that is not much copper at all. I took a quick look at the Larsen range and most of the VHF antenna's were 51" long which is very big. I would imagine to reduce that to, say, a more practical 20 inches, you probably do need helical windings and coils.So it can get hot, particularly if cheap antenna's are used.Richard.

author: tinhead
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 16, 2012, 11:56:43 am
content: i got answer from ChamTech. They don't have any export classification for the Spray On Antenna yet,so no price available (at least for me, domestic quotation might deliver different result).

author: vk6zgo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 16, 2012, 01:48:54 pm
content: Quote from: amspire on February 16, 2012, 11:37:29 amIt looks as if the 51" antennas were 5/8 wavelength unloaded verticals for 144MHz.A 1/4 wave vertical for 136MHz is around 20",with one for 174MHz proportionally smaller so they could be used.The police are extremely unlikely to use"cheap"antennas!If thin wire can get hot,why not the even thinner coating of paint?Another thing is,k0bg referred to "long transmissions",as compared to Anthony's "few seconds".I am a bit surprised at the assumption of 100watts as the output for police radios,in any case.In most cases they have repeaters,so I would have thought about half that!---not that it would make that much difference!Another point is,how come we have the quoted frequency range of 136 MHz-174MHz anyway?Many police radios are in the UHF region.Of course,some are on HF,in country regions of Oz,& they do use 100w!

author: amspire
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 16, 2012, 02:21:50 pm
content: I did a google search for mobile police transceivers in the US.The VHF band is one of the bands the police use, and the peak power of 110W came from the radio spec.Of course some police could be using 5W UHF transceivers, but of those antennas will not get hot.

author: gregariz
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 16, 2012, 05:46:12 pm
content: I could well believe antenna's get hot if they are either inefficient (ie heavily loaded) or off tune.A good antenna will easily be better than 80% efficient - and most often better than 90% efficient. The reason you often don't get better efficiencies has to do with the quality of feed systems and mounting arrangements.What told me that the presentation was nonsense was when the claim of transmitting underwater. Its just not possible unless you can rewrite the electromagnetics equations to somehow minimize the conductivity and permittivity of water. And then there was the stuff about nanocapacitors finding their happy place.

author: MarkS
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 16, 2012, 09:27:07 pm
content: Quote from: tinhead on February 16, 2012, 11:56:43 amYeah, you may have a problem considering your location. :/

author: vk6zgo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 16, 2012, 11:54:29 pm
content: Quote from: gregariz on February 16, 2012, 05:46:12 pmOff-tune shouldn't normally make the antenna hot--more likely to make the feeder hot!(see my previous posting--AND disclaimer--I'm not an antenna guru).Yes,my feeling is we can't "cherry pick" the things thatmightbe possible "If we stand on one leg,scrunch our eyes up,just so,& peer over our left shoulder".The presentation is full of inconsistencies,& should be judged in its entirety.

author: amspire
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 17, 2012, 03:07:14 am
content: Quote from: vk6zgo on February 16, 2012, 11:54:29 pmI think the presentation was full or errors, including experimental errors, but I can see no evidence at all that Antony Sutera lied about anything. It is not hard to see how the underwater results could have been wrecked by a very simple error - when he added the spray to the antenna, it turned the radio ground into an antenna by somehow coupling the antenna signal connection to the water (ground), and the transmission was happening in air, not in the water. It looks like the police antenna he touched did get hot (not a lie), the tree antenna could be explained by the fact he could have been comparing a tree dipole to an untuned wideband miniature antenna. He never said what he was comparing it to. The iPhone improvement? Well how did he actually measure the signal strength? Say the iPhone test with the paint was several days after the test without paint, the difference could have been the atmospheric differences at the time. Anthony actually said he was expecting the spray-on tree antenna would have 70% the performance of a commercial antenna, and was surprised how well it appeared to work for him. That is probably a true statement.I don't think he is a scammer - you just don't pick a market that basically consists of a small number of the biggest organizations with the best labs and the best lawyers with unlimited legal budgets to scam. If you are going to be a scammer, you pick a vulnerable market with huge numbers of victims.Lets get real - Chamtech is a tiny company with 4 employees and an annual budget reportedly of $320K. They make a spray. They don't make antennas, radios, mobile phones, or any electronic devices that I know of, and almost certainly they don't have the money for a decent RF lab. They probably have almost no income yet, so they are extremely vulnerable.They are a spray paint manufacturer. I doubt that Anthony has any electronic qualifications, and the company may not have a single RF engineer in those 4 employees.They make a spray paint that was probably initially designed to DARPA requirements, and they want to get in the door of DARPA (US Military), Apple, Samsung, HTC, Motorola, etc. They probably only have the budget to make a small number of cans, and my suspicion is they actually don't yet have a patent on the spray technology yet. As far as I can see, the only patents they have are some speculative patents of antenna design patterns that I cannot see standing up in court. Basically, the only future the company has is if they have a real product that has useful electrical properties.The "Solve for X" presentation looked like it was a weekend's work (probably was) and looked like it had all the mistakes that a non-RF engineer could make when trying to test antenna performance on the cheap. It definitely is not the rigorous study we would expect from an engineer, but to me, it matches my expectations for a spray can manufacture trying to test antenna performance. They should do weeks RF anechoic chamber testing to measure the exact properties of the material, but they probably cannot without the resources of a bigger company.Again I really have to totally bag the technical bloggers - particularly all the ones who turned Anthony vague single test results claims into total fact - that is really, really stupid. Many of the blogger made claims that went beyond anything Anthony actually said.I just think people are making the mistake of expecting a spray paint manufacturer to behave like a professional electrical engineer with 20 years plus of lab experience. Based on the impressive product at Anthony's previous company (Aero Performance), I am prepared to believe that this is an attempt at a serious product. Whether it is actually useful or not will be decided by a tough and experienced market that I cannot seriously believe will be a victim of any scam. If this presentation manages to get DARPA and companies like Apple to test this spray, then good luck to Chamtech. That is all they seems to be after. I really cannot see them selling this spray on the late night shopping channels along side the ab toning machines. There is just nothing in that presentation that has harmed anyone.If the spray turns out to have some interesting electromagnetic properties that can be used, then it is a very worthwhile product. Perhaps if screen-printed over the top of a transmission line on a PCB, it changes the transmission line properties? That would be fun to play with.Chamtech are a tiny company having a go, and I wish them well. "Give'em a Fair Go" as we say here in Oz.I most certainly don't see it as my duty to protect Apple and the US military from the possibility of being scammed - they don't need my help.Richard

author: vk6zgo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 17, 2012, 06:43:44 am
content: Ok ,Richard,I'll leave Anthony (& you) in peace,we've pretty much done this subject to death!

author: Simon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 17, 2012, 06:53:56 am
content: Quote from: amspire on February 17, 2012, 03:07:14 amwhat like perpetual motion ? I had the idea of perpetual motion when I was 15 and naive and soon figured that if it really was viable someone would have done it and that it was physically impossible - look at all the adult people that get scammed though........

author: G7PSK
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 22, 2012, 09:03:36 am
content: On the local TV news last night, The University of Bedford in UK have developed a radio wave energy harvesting system.The unit they demonstrated was a large coil forming a canister about five inch diameter with six smaller coils inside it onto this they had mounted a cheap electric alarm clock with a dummy battery that contained the electronics. Radio waves gave enough power to run the clock, From coil size and what they were saying I think they were using the medium wave transmitters for power.

author: Simon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 22, 2012, 12:36:56 pm
content: Quote from: G7PSK on February 22, 2012, 09:03:36 ama far cry from a bit of spray on stuff and all it can really power is a minuscule load, a tiny solar panel would do better

author: G7PSK
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 22, 2012, 04:23:00 pm
content: a far cry from a bit of spray on stuff and all it can really power is a minuscule load, a tiny solar panel would do betterI agree a solar cell would be better built into the clock face something I have already seen, but the university of Bedford has 2 patents on this and just received government funding. I am not sure that the BBC will be happy with thousands of these all drawing power from their transmitters, After all it all be increased loading on them and they will have to up the power, and power costs.

author: Simon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 22, 2012, 05:23:30 pm
content: Quote from: G7PSK on February 22, 2012, 04:23:00 pmI agree a solar cell would be better built into the clock face something I have already seen, but the university of Bedford has 2 patents on this and just received government funding. I am not sure that the BBC will be happy with thousands of these all drawing power from their transmitters, After all it all be increased loading on them and they will have to up the power, and power costs.A government grant ? oh for fuck sake what is the matter with this stupid government, don't they know the basics of physics......

author: IntrepidN00b
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: February 22, 2012, 05:55:15 pm
content: If i were a small company like Chamtech, stumbling on a revolutionary product like this, the first thing I'd do would be calling the physics department of a local university to get some testing done by people who know what they are doing.Also if it holds water a few scientific articles and a co-op venture with a Uni will help with the patent applications and credibility of the product.it smells fishy to me with my limited understanding of RF and the laws of nature. However I do know that the nano tech world with new high tech materials that are coming have some very exciting possibilities. So it isn't quite out of the question. Just the other day we had the one single atom transistor on Ars Technica, as a point in case.Good luck to Chamtech and if their product holds water I'm looking forward to a 2 day instead of 1 day battery life on the iPhone 5 and better coverage than Iridium Satelite phones no matter how I hold my iPhone ;-)

author: Simon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 22, 2012, 05:57:16 pm
content: I think he is just spouting about nano technology without knowing a thing, so he showed a close up / microscope photo - big deal, did it prove anything ? NO !!!

author: G7PSK
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 22, 2012, 06:16:23 pm
content: The trouble Simon is we have not had a governed that knows anything about anything for for at least 60 years. most likely the world over, politicians go straight from university or even school to politics they have not had real world experiencing.There should be an age limit, something like you have to be at least 50 before you can go into politics, that way there might not be so many backsides talking.

author: Simon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 22, 2012, 06:17:29 pm
content: I thought they paid expensive consultants to sort that out

author: MikeK
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 22, 2012, 06:19:13 pm
content: Quote from: IntrepidN00b on February 22, 2012, 05:55:15 pmNot if you're a huckster, you wouldn't. Sutera is the CEO of ChamTech and has been trying to get approval for a combat training site in Utah. He wants investors and support, not scientists with their messy facts and analysis.

author: G7PSK
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 22, 2012, 06:39:41 pm
content: Quote from: Simon on February 22, 2012, 06:17:29 pmThey do pay expensive consultants to defraud the public, police arrested four the other day, perhaps things are catching up at last on these crooks.