Sea Water Antenna

SPAWAR Systems Center Pacific has developed a technology that uses the magnetic induction properties of sodium chloride (salt) in sea water to create UHF/VHF/HF antenna.

• Category

  Science & Technology

[pa1ap]

Reinventing the wheel I would say. There is prior art for this and cannot be patented, they should do a little more homework and look around before making such claims... google for "Ionic Liquid Antenna"

[SPAWARPacificT2]

It is unique. Uses a pump that shoots electrolytic fluid through center of current probe. Height and diameter of fluid stream determine freq and bandwidth. Also provides for use of multiple heads and current probes to cover variety of freq and bandwidths. While diff variations of ionic liquid antennas exist, we are not aware of one that incorporates these features. Antennas that take advantage of conductivity of sea water have been around for decades. This particular design is novel.

[wrlgmail]

Wow- a Gaussian field never looked so good to us hams! I wonder, do we need to individually enter into a license agreement to experiment further?

[SPAWARPacificT2]

@wrlgmail There may be a few different ways to partner with SSC Pacific and collaborate/experiment further. Please contact our Technology Transfer Office at ssc_pac_t2@navy.mil for more information.

[ghz240]

most TV is horizontally polarized so the stream would need to be horizontal not vertical as shown.

[ChloeBurnett02]

Hey I am 11 years old and I love having a AMATEUR lisence I got it in February 2013 and although I am a rookie I love this idea it is a handy tool made even LIFESAVING one day

[jjensen2492]

Awesome. Good idea. Really Multiband.

[zogmfirst]

Kinda useless. No gain against a wire of the same lenght. Draws current from your batteries that could be used for the transciever instead, not good in an emergency when you got limited power.

Yes its 'tunable' but so is a piece of wire.

[Scot Jones]

Signal report on a repeater? :/

[Fresno Joe]

Cool~!

[Andy Brandt]

Daniel Tam's callsign is KE6FRY in casy anyone had a problem understanding it...

[uhclem]

When your government shuts down the interwebs and you want to communicate via ham, maybe this won't sound like such a silly idea.

[MattDane23]

I got to meet Mr. Daniel Tam when my engineering class got to take a high security tour of Spawar Pacific. Quite an amazing invention, because I got to put my finger in between the coil so that we could listen to the radio. A very amazing day...

[Matt Casdorph]

I have another thought, could a person use a cup of salt water to make a UHF/VHF antenna for a TV?