Print Page 8/17/2010

WASHINGTON: The National Association of Broadcasters today released a report on advanced indoor TV antenna technology. The group’s technology advocacy program, known as “NAB FastRoad,” compiled the 131-page report. The NAB says it “proposes a new design that employs a combination of technologies and has the potential to achieve superior VHF and UHF performance for digital TV sets.” The report was produced by the NAB with Devens, Mass.-based Megawave Corp.

Megawave and the NAB teamed up 15 years ago to develop a VHF-UHF indoor bow-tie antenna. Megawave said it’s been monitoring antenna technology ever since. (Story continues below graphic.)

“In this project, this knowledge was used to identify 10 candidate design methods and technologies that have the potential to materially improve the performance of indoor VHF-UHF TV
antennas,” Megawave says in the document. “This report describes each candidate and its potential to improve indoor ‘set-top’ reception of DTV signals between 54 and 698 MHz.”
 
The candidates are divided into three categories; mature technologies not requiring the CE-909-A designator; mature technologies that do require it; and emerging technologies. The types include fragmented antennas, non-Foster impedance matching, active RF noise canceling, automating matching systems, reconfigurable elements, metamaterials, electromagnetic band-gap materials, fractals and retrodirective arrays.

“High-Performance Indoor VHF-UHF Antennas: Technology Update Report,” is available in .pdf form at NABFastroad.org.   Print Page