Patent ID: 7515107

Claim:
An antenna comprising: (a) a conductive ground plane; and (b) a rod shaped monopole element having a conductive surface, oriented out from the ground plane and having a length selected for a first radio frequency band, the monopole element having a current suppressing element conductively attached and surrounding the surface of the monopole element at a selected first location on the monopole element determined by a second frequency band higher than the first frequency band, wherein the rod-shaped monopole element has a relatively wide cross-section such that the antenna is operable over relatively wide ranges of frequencies in one or both of the frequency bands, and wherein the current suppressing element includes a top conductive face and a bottom conductive face substantially parallel to each other and to the ground plane and conductively coupled to the outer surface of the monopole element at the selected first location, the faces extending out from the surface of the monopole in all directions.