[time-nuts] DIY GPS antenna...

Magnus Danielson magnus at rubidium.dyndns.org
Sun Sep 29 13:09:50 EDT 2013


Attila,

On 09/29/2013 07:00 PM, Attila Kinali wrote:
> On Tue, 17 Sep 2013 10:55:51 -0600
> ed_palmer at sasktel.net wrote:
>
>> That sounds like a pinwheel antenna.  I've wondered how hard it would 
>> be to build one, but I've never seen a DIY version and the math is way 
>> beyond me.  The only commercial version that I've seen is from 
>> Novatel.  Do they control all the patents?
> Building one should be fairly easy. Just use standard PCB fabrication
> and you can build the whole structure with high accuracy. The design
> itself is the hard thing to come up with. I think, for us mere mortals
> the only way to come up with something half decent is to use a genetic
> algorithm that goes trough various designs and selects the best one.
> Unfortunately, i'm not aware of any antenna design software suitable
> for such a task. 
>
> As for patents, i don't think they can patent the general idea of
> the pinwheel antenna. It is awfully similar to other patch antenna
> types and electromagnetic band-gap designs. I could imagine that their
> particular design is protected somehow, but i've never checked.
Do read the patents. There are several, and it's a good read if you want
to learn about the pinwheel technology.

Cheers,
Magnus


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