Super Antenna

[conradelektro]

Hi Neo.

This is up one of my favorite ally's, I studied antenna theory say 20 years ago, very interesting to say the least, I look at radio waves as a cool source of potential energy, I like an antenna design in the shape of a full band slice of pie, hexagonal antenna with 6 individual slices that form a radial and omni-directional antenna.

if you need an idea of the design, imagine 3 bow tie antenna's that form a hexagon, pretty simple.

looking forward to your next post.

Jerry

@Jerry: I always wanted to ask a specialist about a "very broad band antenna". I want an antenna that is pretty good at receiving electromagnetic waves from 60 Mhz to 10 GHz. That would cover most of the radio transmissions in Europe (FM radio, TV, cell phones and WLANs).

I do not want to tune into one specific station (frequency). I want to catch all transmissions in order to convert them into usefable energy (rectification of all received frequencies into DC, e.g. to charge a 1.2 Volt rechargeable battery).

May be you have some ideas? How would such a "very broad band antenna" look like (its geometry)?

Is it possible to build an antenna which receives all frequences in this broad range (60 MHz to 10 GHz) equally well (not equally weakly).

Greetings, Conrad

[wings]

@Jerry: I always wanted to ask a specialist about a "very broad band antenna". I want an antenna that is pretty good at receiving electromagnetic waves from 60 Mhz to 10 GHz. That would cover most of the radio transmissions in Europe (FM radio, TV, cell phones and WLANs).

I do not want to tune into one specific station (frequency). I want to catch all transmissions in order to convert them into usefable energy (rectification of all received frequencies into DC, e.g. to charge a 1.2 Volt rechargeable battery).

May be you have some ideas? How would such a "very broad band antenna" look like (its geometry)?

Is it possible to build an antenna which receives all frequences in this broad range (60 MHz to 10 GHz) equally well (not equally weakly).

Greetings, Conrad

Fractal antenna
http://www.fractenna.com/faq/faq.html
http://www.fractenna.com/downloads/FractalAntennaSystems_TechnologyBrochure.pdf

Lakhovsky antenna my be useful
http://www.multiwaveoscillator.nl/content/view/21/41/lang,en/
http://www.nazis.be/Gang-stalking-Neo-nazis-Sanguine-Monark-Perpetrator/PDF/Pqychotronic-Frequency-Analysis-of-the-Lakhovsky-Multiple-Wave-Oscillator-from-20-Hz-to-20-GHz.pdf

or plasma antenna :
They can be dynamically tuned and reconfigured for frequency, direction, bandwidth, gain and beamwidth, so replacing the need for multiple antennas
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_antenna
http://www.antentop.org/004/plasma.htm

[conradelektro]

Fractal antenna

Lakhovsky antenna my be useful

or plasma antenna :
They can be dynamically tuned and reconfigured for frequency, direction, bandwidth, gain and beamwidth, so replacing the need for multiple antennas

@Wings: I am afraid, the antennas you mentioned (for sure the fractal antenna and the plasma antenna) still have to be designed or at least tuned into a specific narrow band (narrow range of frequencies). And the frequency range of the Lakhovsky antenna is not clear.

What I want is to receive alle frequencies from 60 MHz to 10 GHz at once or together (seems it is difficult to make myself understood). Not only the station which is the most powerful at a given location, but also all other stations or transmitters weak or strong. So, I want to receive the whole elctromagnetic smog souurounding us with one antenna.

There are some FM radio stations in every area, there are some TV stations, there are a few cell phone towers everywhere, and there are some WLANs everywhere. In Vienna one sees 20 or more WLANS in an aparement building and I see the WLAN in the houses of my neighbour. And I want to receive all that "electromegnetic smog" with one antenna and I want to rectify the whole lot into DC.

The contribuition of each transmitter might be low, but in sum there could be useful power to be fed into a rechargable battery over time.

Whenever I talk to a specialist about antennas I end up with something that is not "very broad band". The specialists just naturally think in "adapting the antenna to the frequency" and think that this is the only thing required. And normaly that is the case, we are normaly only receiving the transmission from one transmitter. And the specialist always has this situation in mind. "What do you want to recieve?" they ask me (meaning "At what frequency does the transmitter transmit"?). And I say "I want to receive everything", and then the specialists "switch of mentally".

Greetings, Conrad

[Madebymonkeys]

@Wings: I am afraid, the antennas you mentioned (for sure the fractal antenna and the plasma antenna) still have to be designed or at least tuned into a specific narrow band (narrow range of frequencies). And the frequency range of the Lakhovsky antenna is not clear.

What I want is to receive alle frequencies from 60 MHz to 10 GHz at once or together (seems it is difficult to make myself understood). Not only the station which is the most powerful at a given location, but also all other stations or transmitters weak or strong. So, I want to receive the whole elctromagnetic smog souurounding us with one antenna.

There are some FM radio stations in every area, there are some TV stations, there are a few cell phone towers everywhere, and there are some WLANs everywhere. In Vienna one sees 20 or more WLANS in an aparement building and I see the WLAN in the houses of my neighbour. And I want to receive all that "electromegnetic smog" with one antenna and I want to rectify the whole lot into DC.

The contribuition of each transmitter might be low, but in sum there could be useful power to be fed into a rechargable battery over time.

Whenever I talk to a specialist about antennas I end up with something that is not "very broad band". The specialists just naturally think in "adapting the antenna to the frequency" and think that this is the only thing required. And normaly that is the case, we are normaly only receiving the transmission from one transmitter. And the specialist always has this situation in mind. "What do you want to recieve?" they ask me (meaning "At what frequency does the transmitter transmit"?). And I say "I want to receive everything", and then the specialists "switch of mentally".

Greetings, Conrad

Our local emc test lab has some broadband antennas, lots of them. None of them are as broad as you require and down at 60MHz they are very large and relatively expensive (a few £k for a decent one). This is a company which has some examples:
http://www.ets-lindgren.com/EMCAntennas

Also, in the interest of managing expectations, they won't receive all signals as well as each other - the best you can expect is a few dB flatness over the band.
Would you prefer gain or omnidirectionality?

Assuming a theoretical 'perfect antenna' for your application existed, what would you do with the mess of RF (sums and difference frequencies etc) being collected by it? I'm not sure whether you could collect enough power to do anything particularly useful!

Do you have a circuit in mind?

Sorry for all the questions

Thanks

MBM

[conradelektro]

Would you prefer gain or omnidirectionality?

Good gain and omniderectional. (Is there a reason why this is impossible?)

Assuming a theoretical 'perfect antenna' for your application existed, what would you do with the mess of RF (sums and difference frequencies etc) being collected by it? I'm not sure whether you could collect enough power to do anything particularly useful!

The mess of RF (sums and difference frequencies etc) should be rectified by a full bridge rectifier. (This needs HF-Diodes.) Even if the power is minimal, a small 1.2 Volt rechargeable batterie could be charged over time. Or one charges a supe cap over time (does not matter if this takes a day), and then the super cap is used as small power source, e.g. in a flash light. Or one keeps a super cap charged till it is needed for a flash light.

This is of course more an experiment than a useful application. But even more exotic things have been sold successfully. I am thinking about preppers.

Do you have a circuit in mind?

See the attached circuit. The antenna is the problem. Somewhere a ground connection is also necessary. Be aware that the circuit might not work.

What I want to hear from an expert are technical or theoretical reasons why such a "very broadband antenna" with good gain in all frequencies and omnidrectionality is not possible. One could then do some research on how to overcome these problems.

I found that collecting some power from the 45 Hz or 50 Hz hum (radiation or electromagnetic smog from the 110 Volt or 220 Volt AC mains net) is possible with a very long isolated cable just lying on the ground or hanging at a few meters height. This cable is connected to one AC input of a full bridge rectifier and the ground is connected to the other AC input of the full bridge rectifier. See the second attached drawing. This circuit works, the amount of collected power depends very much on the location. Of course it is quite good in an environment with many big electrical appliances.

Greetings, Conrad