Wireless Broadband Internet
Amazon Secretly Running High End Store

Is That An Antenna Or Are You Just Happy To See Me?

Bleeding Edge

from the amazing-shrinking-materials dept

Fri, Mar 8th 2002 1:35pm — Mike Masnick
Joe Schmoe writes in to tell us about the NY Times article about some new antenna material that should make it possible to make smaller, stronger, more powerful antennas. Anyone who's dealt with a broken (or just plain bad) mobile phone antenna will welcome such a thing. The waya it works is mixing a metallic compound with plastic or rubber to make a conductive material that can be molded into any shape. Thus, the actual casing of the phone can be the antenna. The article also talks about a number of other cool potential uses of such a system - such as turning truck bumpers into giant antennas in order to track them.
Hide this

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

6 Comments

If you liked this post, you may also be interested in...

Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread


  1. identicon
    Mike, 8 Mar 2002 @ 2:26pm

    not really that new or exciting...

    come on. conductive plastic blends have been around for decades. this is not that new. I have never understood why cell phone makers made extendable antennae in the first place... has anyone ever gotten better reception by extending their cell phone antenna? I haven't.

    [ link to this | view in thread ]

  2. identicon
    Mick, 8 Mar 2002 @ 3:53pm

    Extending antenna for better reception

    I have seen it on my cell phone's signal strength indicator. The signal may or may not jump up a few lines on the "meter" if I extend the antenna.

    There has been discussion about R/F hazard from cell phone antenna. I wonder if making the case the antenna would be a problem in this regard seeing as how it would be closer to the user's body.

    [ link to this | view in thread ]

  3. identicon
    Phillip, 8 Mar 2002 @ 5:52pm

    Extending antenna

    Simply extending an antenna won't do any good. The optimum antenna length is determined by the frequency it receives, and ideal reception is achieved by a multiple of this optimal length. The reason for the antenna on the mobile phone is as much fashion as anything else. Remember when the health scare arose? The signal strength for an electromagnetic emission drops exponentially in proportion to its distance (inverse square law) and mobile phone makes could have eliminated any potential risks of microwaving the brain by putting the antenna on the bottom of the handset instead of the top. Did they? Of course not, it doesn't look as good. Same goes with integrating the antenna into the body, it won't happen until the public perceive antenna-less phones as trendy.

    Phillip.

    [ link to this | view in thread ]

  4. icon
    Mike (profile), 8 Mar 2002 @ 6:44pm

    Re: Extending antenna

    Hmm. But the little popular Nokias which are very trendy these days don't have an antenna and that's always been one of the "features".

    [ link to this | view in thread ]

  5. identicon
    msykes, 8 Mar 2002 @ 6:47pm

    Re: Extending antenna for better reception

    Heck, the signal on my phone jumps a few bars if I hold it sideways! mhh5's all-knowingness aside, better antennas has to be a good thing, though I also have somewhat vague concerns about long term radiation effects.

    The antenna is the one thing I dislike about the StarTac, they really need to do away with it. Or at least make a stronger, non retractable version.

    msykes

    [ link to this | view in thread ]

  6. identicon
    Phillip, 10 Mar 2002 @ 8:00pm

    Little Nokia

    The 8210 has an internal antenna, but it suffers from comparitively poor reception. Comparing reception is a bit of a mobile phone sport, hence it lost trendy points on that. Lack of antenna received a mixed reception (sorry) amongst my friends. I almost bought the small Nokia but was put off by the alleged poor reception.

    Phillip.

    [ link to this | view in thread ]


Wireless Broadband Internet
Amazon Secretly Running High End Store
Follow Techdirt
Essential Reading
Techdirt Deals
Report this ad  |  Hide Techdirt ads
Techdirt Insider Discord

The latest chatter on the Techdirt Insider Discord channel...

Loading...
Recent Stories

Friday

19:39 Important Announcement: Techdirt Is Migrating To A New Platform (0)
More arrow

This site, like most other sites on the web, uses cookies. For more information, see our privacy policy. Got it
Close

Email This

This feature is only available to registered users. Register or sign in to use it.