Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Is tiny antenna next big thing?

From: NEXTEL-1
Date: Thu, 10 Jun 2004 16:12:11 -0400

Is tiny antenna next big thing?
Technician's tinkering could make millions for him and
URI

01:00 AM EDT on Thursday, June 10, 2004
BY JENNIFER D. JORDAN
Journal Staff Writer

SOUTH KINGSTOWN -- Rob Vincent never outgrew his childhood hobby as an
amateur radio operator. He wrapped his parents' house in Warren with
wires and later tinkered in basement workshops, searching for a way to
get better reception without using the large antennas that were always
too big for the relatively small homes he lived in.

His current house in Warwick sits on a small lot, so ham radio buddies
in Cumberland and Westport let him install various antennas on their
properties a couple of years ago, converting their yards into test sites
for Vincent's myriad experiments.
Now 60, Vincent believes he has done it. He has invented very small,
efficient, powerful antennas that work as well as much larger ones. The
possibilities are dizzying; cell phone companies, Wal-Mart, the U.S.
Defense Department might all covet this technology. If so, Vincent's
invention could bring in millions of dollars, about half of which would
go to him. The other half would go to his place of employment -- the
University of Rhode Island.

"There was a time in my life when I needed someone to have faith in me,
and they gave me a job," Vincent said of his arrangement with URI. "They
gave me a purpose."

VINCENT DISPLAYS his prototype, a delicate nine-inch antenna, next to a
standard-size, 54-inch antenna in a lab on the Kingston campus
yesterday. Both have a bandwith of 150 megahertz and both have an
efficiency rate of about 90 percent, meaning only 10 percent of energy
generated is wasted in the form of heat, Vincent explained.

To his knowledge -- and so far to the knowledge of lawyers from the U.S.
Patent and Trademark Office who are conducting exhaustive searches --
Vincent's antenna is the only one that can claim such a small size
combined with high efficiency and wide bandwith.
Vincent said he accomplished this by combining several different antenna
technologies that had not been used together before. Along the way, he
melted several models before he discovered the right combination.

"This little antenna has all the performance of the big one," Vincent
said, gazing down at his invention. "We call it David, because it does a
pretty good job of emulating Goliath here."

If his invention proves successful, it could double the range of police
walkie-talkies, boost the reception of cell phones and global
positioning systems and allow airplanes to use shorter antennas to talk
to air-traffic controllers. Vincent's 9-inch antenna could render
obsolete radio towers that stretch hundreds of feet into the sky.

Vincent is also developing a tiny, flat antenna that fits on a postage
stamp and could have even more profound implications for homeland
security efforts. But he hesitated to discuss that invention in detail
because it is not as far along the patent process as his 9-inch antenna.

USUALLY, PROFESSORS split the profits from their intellectual property
three ways: a third for URI, a third for their college and a third for
themselves, says Quentin "Chuck" Turtle, URI's director for industrial
research and technology transfer.
But Vincent's case was different.

First, he is not a professor or a graduate student. After 30 years
working in electronics and design engineering for companies such as
Raytheon, Vincent found himself out of work in the early 1990s. He
decided to return to college to complete his bachelor's degree and got a
job as a technician in URI's physics department. Vincent says he enjoys
his job repairing scientific equipment, designing research devices and
assisting faculty and graduate students. Physics professors supported
his antenna project and encouraged Vincent to submit his idea to URI's
intellectual property committee last year -- a highly unusual move for a
staff member, Turtle said.

"This is the first time in my 15 years here that this has happened,"
Turtle said. "Usually it is a faculty member or a graduate student or a
combination of those two, but in this case, he is a physics technician."

Second, Vincent created his inventions on his own time and did not use
university facilities and resources. "So the invention was his, and he
ceded it to the university," Turtle said.

URI's intellectual property committee agreed last year to pay for the
costly and lengthy patent process, including thousands of dollars in
attorney fees. URI has also given Vincent time this spring to prepare
proposals and reports related to his invention.
Under the agreement, URI receives 40 percent of any commercial profits;
Vincent receives 60 percent. But Vincent has promised to give 20 percent
of his portion to the physics department.

Turtle says the phone has been ringing since URI publicly announced
Vincent's invention last week.
"I am surprised it appears to be a design that has garnered so much
interest, with such little exposure," Turtle said. "If I were to gaze
into the crystal ball, I would say it certainly will turn out to be a
great invention. There are so many potential applications and such a
need for it."

VINCENT HAS NEVER made much money from his various jobs and said
finances were always tight, especially after two divorces and four
children.

His antennas look promising, but Vincent's friend Jan Northby, chairman
of the physics department, has adopted a cautious approach.

"I am hopeful because I think this is an idea with wide applications,
that could be very valuable to Rob, the university and the organizations
that want to use it," Northby said. "But we're a long way from having a
product that is ready to sell, and getting rich off of patents is not a
guaranteed thing."

If his inventions do make him rich, Vincent already knows how he'd like
to spend his 48 percent of the profits: more visits to his grown
children. He lost precious time with them when they were younger, and he
doesn't want to miss any more.
Vincent wants to set up a fund for fathers going through divorce, to
help them emotionally and financially adjust to single parenthood, child
support payments and trying to get good jobs. He hopes to go fly-fishing
and bike riding and read lots of Jack Higgins books. He might buy a
sailboat. Maybe he'll finish his bachelor's degree in physics and teach
at a technical school. He'll spend more time with his "significant
other" at home in Warwick.  When not doing all of the above, Vincent
will most likely be in his "shack," sending Morse code to his fellow
amateur radio operators.

 http://www.projo.com/news/content/projo_20040610_uri10.25a1ab.html
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From: "Paul Holliday" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 11 Jun 2004 16:44:36 -0400

We all have heard of the part that you could put on you carburetor & get 50
MPG & the gas companies bought the patent so it would not be produced,
could this be the same?

----- Original Message ----- 
From: <[email-masked]>
To: <[email-masked]>; "WFHSG" <[email-masked]>
Sent: Thursday, June 10, 2004 4:12 PM
Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Is tiny antenna next big thing?

 
Yahoo! Groups Links

---

From: "Steve S. Bosshard \(NU5D\)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 12 Jun 2004 06:08:29 -0500

Paul,

You took the words out of my mouth. – But I do hope it is true.  Back around
1991 or so, there was a similar scheme where a ground mounted antenna system
had the effect of being 2 or 3 hundred feet in the air.  Made the trades
once never to be seen again.

Steve

   _____  

From: Paul Holliday [mailto:[email-masked]] 
Sent: Friday, June 11, 2004 3:45 PM
To: [email-masked]
Subject: Re: [NEXTEL-1] Is tiny antenna next big thing?

*         We all have heard of the part that you could put on you carburetor
& get 50
MPG & the gas companies bought the patent so it would not be produced,
could this be the same?

[Steve S. Bosshard]   

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