The Wave Antenna A New Type of Highly Directive Antenna

A small bungalow in a grove of oak trees just outside of Riverhead, Long Island, with a line of poles along a country road, carrying two copper wires, and ending by a stream nine miles southwest of Riverhead,-this in brief describes the Atlantic coast ''ear'' of the Radio Corporation of America, where the wireless messages from England, France, Germany and Norway are received, disentangled, amplified, converted into current of telephonic frequency and automatically relayed over telephone circuits to the Broad St. Office in New York, where operators take the messages by ear, or automatic recorders mark the dots and dashes on tape. The present paper deals with the two copper wires on the line of poles, for they constitute the wave antenna which has not only marked a distinct advance in the reduction of interference and ''static,'' but because of its aperiodic nature and effectiveness as an energy collector, has made possible the sumultaneous reception of a large number of messages by one antenna, and the automatic relaying of the messages over land wires. The use of two wires is not an essential feature of the wave antenna but permits flexibility in the location of the receiving station. In its elementary form the wave antenna consists of a straight horizontal conductor. (See Fig.