Hi Ian

Your e-mail regarding the CFA antenna got through the reflector OK.

Maybe a bit "old hat" - no pun intended - but I see GM3HAT has a bit on

the

CFA in the July issue of RSARS mag, "Mercury".( Actually while I was
presidenting he sent me a  copy of the paper presented at the IEE

conference

in 1997. I can't follow either of them.)

As regards the CFA papers I don't think you are intended to follow them.What
we have with these papers is obfuscation rather than clarification and
mathematics rather than simple testable models.
Any antenna design, which invokes Maxwell's equations as support, without a
considerable amount of comparative test measurements with known antennas, is
suspect. While theoretical analysis is fine you must build and test the
model - in other words experiment. Every CFA test that I have ever heard of
has either been followed by silence or an unfavourable result. The only
detailed test I have seen documented is described in 'CFA - RIP?',
Electronics World + Wireless World, May 1993. (e-mail me for a copy if you
want one). If anyone has other well documented comparative test results of
the CFA I should be pleased to see them.
Considering how long the CFA antenna has been around you would expect,
considering the amateur radio need for compact antennas, that this antenna
would be real success story. It has not.

Regards,
Peter, G3LDO

e-mail <[email protected]>

Web <http://web.ukonline.co.uk/g3ldo>