9/20/13

ATSC 8VSB Fractal Antennas

Low Profile ATSC Digital Television Fractal Antennas

Abstract
Without low profile fractal antennas designed for reliable reception of ATSC 8VSB Digital Television (Widescreen HDTV) millions of people in metropolitan (and rural) regions in North America will continue to be without a reliable television service. With the exception of some households that have been able to recycle their Yagi-Uda antennas (VHF, UHF or Dual-band types) for reception of ATSC -- most North American households will continue to have television reception quality far below what the 8VSB signal transmission system is capable of achieving. Historically : NTSC, PAL or SECAM fadeout events generally are "long duration" events due to the continuous wave nature of the traditional TV transmission signal. These fadeout events were tolerable (or at least interesting) to the traditional analogue television viewer. ATSC 8VSB fadeout events in the digital television era are generally catastrophic and random. These fadeout events alienate less technically inclined television viewers, as the cause of reception failure is often not obvious. Viewers in general expect digital television (regardless of how it is transmitted) to be more reliable than analogue television. This reliability has not yet been achieved. Most 8VSB set top box decoders (as of the mid to late 2010s) only possess "2nd generation" adaptive reception chipsets. These chipsets [and their associated receiver subsystems] have on average only adequate sensitivity to weak signals. These receivers possess only a limited ability to cope with instantaneous fade out events. Longer duration fade out events are at best "coped with" generally with variable degrees of success. The most up to date 3rd and 4th generation 8VSB adaptive reception chipsets often do not perform as optimally as their designers originally hoped. There are a myriad of subtle (and gross) design and transmission issues that these receivers must cope with that are beyond the ability of a laboratory to simulate adequately. Currently the ATSC HDTV viewer is left only with ongoing frustration. Most 8VSB decoders uniformly fail to tell the viewer that the received signal is unhealthy before a link loss event. Long duration fade events (as with analogue television) don't really happen with 8VSB as the digital televion transmitters use 2/3rds to 1/3rd less power than their previous analogue relative. Essentially, fractal antennas are the only way to make 8VSB HDTV reception reliable again, at the lowest possible cost to all parties involved. If the antennas are designed properly, the need for antenna amplifiers (for a large number of users) may also be mitigated.
www.hireme.geek.nz/ATSC-8VSB-fractal-antenna.html 1/11

9/20/13

ATSC 8VSB Fractal Antennas

Why the current ATSC antennas are not working The 8VSB waveform is a "single carrier waveform" that is systemically subject to the vagaries of Single Side Band (SSB) fading. SSB is the analog waveform it is most closely related to 8VSB. SSB is used by PAL, SECAM and NTSC -- the three existing TV broadcasting systems that have been around for some 50 years. Options that need to be considered Increasing the power of the 8VSB carrier wave (not the overall transmitter power and not the 7% DC component inserted into the 8VSB datastream) by 2db will probably not substantially improve reception link margins. Increasing carrier wave power could at best help to improve link margins by 1.25db under ideal conditions. This signal modification would require replacing current modulators. This means having to recalibrate existing transmitters, not to mention testing the modification out to see if it actually works at all. Increasing carrier wave power is not an ideal option at this time, but it needs to be reconsidered as part of a set of long run solutions to improve 8VSB reception. No more than 2db carrier power increase is necessary, but it will be mess to implement. The recently specified ATSC error correction subsystem's non-mandatory status (in the US or Canada) is not available to help reception due to a failure of leadership in the oversight of 8VSB. This backwardly compatible subsystem is part of ATSC-E (E for Enhanced). Making the updated ATSC Error Correction data stream mandatory (for transmission and decoders) by 2010 would help, but this would not help existing receivers. There has been a systemic failure in terms of implementing in the body of broadcasting regulation a secondary psudorandom anti fading sequence for ATSC. This long run sequence anti fading sequence came into effect with the coming of the updated ATSC standard. This backwardly compatible subsystem is part of ATSC-E (E for Enhanced). ATSC already supports a 24 ms anti fading sequence, but it is not suitable for combating long run (30 ms .... 3000 ms) fading effects. Making the updated ATSC secondary anti fading sequence mandatory by 2010 would help, but existing receivers would be left out in the cold. Why these options need to be considered Recovering a clock signal in order to decode a received waveform has always been a tricky proposition in digital RF communications. If we derive the receiver clock from the recovered data, we have a sort of "chicken and egg" dilemma. The data must be sampled by the receiver clock in order to be accurately recovered. The receiver clock itself must be generated from accurately recovered data. The resulting clocking system quickly "crashes" when the noise or interference level rises to a point that significant data errors are received. When NTSC (and PAL) were invented, the need was recognized to have a powerful sync pulse that rose above the rest of the RF modulation envelope. In this way, the receiver synchronization circuits could still "home in" on the sync pulses and maintain the correct picture framing -- even if the contents of the picture were a bit snowy. NTSC (and PAL) also benefited from a large residual visual carrier (caused by the DC component of the modulating video). This residual carrier helped TV receiver tuners zero in on the transmitted carrier center
www.hireme.geek.nz/ATSC-8VSB-fractal-antenna.html 2/11

9/20/13

ATSC 8VSB Fractal Antennas

frequency. The 8VSB transmission system employs a similar strategy of sync pulses and residual carriers that allows the receiver to "lock" onto the incoming signal and begin decoding, even in the presence of heavy ghosting and high noise levels. The first "helper" signal is the ATSC pilot. Just before modulation, a small DC shift is applied to the 8VSB baseband signal (which was previously centered about zero volts with no DC component). This causes a small residual carrier to appear at the zero frequency point of the resulting modulated spectrum. This is the ATSC pilot. This gives the RF PLL circuits in the 8VSB receiver something to lock onto that is independent of the data being transmitted. Although similar in nature, the ATSC pilot is much smaller than the NTSC visual carrier, consuming only 0.3 dB or 7 percent of the transmitted power. With NTSC, PAL and SECAM on average 50% of the transmitter power went into transmitting sync pulses. For DVB-T and ISDB transmission technologies, there is no need to use a fractal antenna DVB-T and ISDB are both multicarrier waveforms, thus there is no need to use a fractal antenna to receive them. Also, both have configurable error correction and configurable data rates that allow the bandwidth to be matched precisely to the content that needs to be transmitted -- in a way that is most error resilient.

Thus there is no need [at this point in time] for European Union (or more specifically European Broadcasting Union), ASEAN or Japanese (or Brazilian) consumers to get new TV antennas.
Ultimately it is up to the consumer to use a better antenna While most businesses (and more commonly home owners) can install Log Periodic "LP " antennas (typically in Horizontal polarization, in the Yagi-Uda family of antennas), many apartment dwellers as well as condo dwellers don't have access to mounting an outside antenna for legal or space reasons. It must be noted that the LP antenna type itself a kind of lesser fractal, so one could in essence argue that fractal antennas have proven themselves in the television reception area for some 50 years. A low profile antenna is needed that can fit inside people's flats that itself is not visible, but can provide link margins similar to the existing LP antennas used on people's rooftops. So another kind of fractal antenna must therefore be used. Any kind of fractal antenna would probably be better than the standard dipoles (and "rabbit ears" antennas for UHF) that are associated with current TV sets in North America. Catastrophic 8VSB fading events are caused by the loss of "carrier lock" coupled with a loss of the inserted "DC" component (mandatory at 7%, by specification) causing a partial or total loss of the PLL lock on the datastream. Fractal antennas needed here as no other workable solution is available In order to compensate against the loss of "carrier lock" (and the DC component lock), your antenna must get
www.hireme.geek.nz/ATSC-8VSB-fractal-antenna.html 3/11

9/20/13

ATSC 8VSB Fractal Antennas

bigger -- classical antenna theory for all practical purposes dictates this for single carrier wave reception. A large antenna surface area (and an antenna that is multiply resonant) seems to be the only viable way to achieve reliable SSB or 8VSB reception. Fractal antennas (even some the smallest ones) have relatively large surface areas by default. Fractal antennas also can have the ability to intercept polarized electromagnetic waves in a superior manner to the dipoles that are in common use, at least when it comes to concentrating and channelling incoming electromagnetic energy. Important design considerations drawn from fractal antenna research (not organized for content) When the number of Iterated Fractal Structure (IFS) iterations increases beyond a certain threshold, the change in radiation patterns and input impedance of the antenna tends to zero. In other words, there is no use in increasing the number of IFS iterations after iteration 'x', due to no further advantage being gained in terms of antenna efficiency. Convergence is usually achieved between 4 and 6 iterations. This value depends largely on the size, wire radius or strip width and topology of the antenna as well as the antenna's target frequency bands. The increase of fractal dimension, although making better space filling curves, builds larger monopoles with lower efficiencies and higher quality factors even for the first iterations, at least for wire structures without loops. Topology has a stronger influence than fractal dimension on the electromagnetic behaviour of planar prefractal wire monopoles, in particular on their respective losses efficiency factor. When the wire geometry contains no loops, each IFS iteration increases the length and bending of the wires: as a consequence ohmic losses and the amount of stored energy on the surrounding of the antenna increases (this means lower radiation efficiencies and higher quality factors). While the ratios of miniaturization can be remarkable, the achieved efficiencies and quality factors are not that practical. The low radiation resistances are due to the presence of anti-parallel currents that cancel the radiation of each other. The antenna must be designed or tapped in such a way as to minimize this problem. Wire geometries containing loops do not have anti-parallel currents. Although they do not achieve a large degree of miniaturization, as the number of loops inside the structure increases, efficiency and fractional bandwidth (inverse of quality factor) seem to increase with the order of the pre-fractal (number of IFS iterations). It has been observed that radiation resistance results are dependent on the length of the feeding segment of the monopole, which seems to be the main source of radiation, while the rest of the structure behaves as a capacitive load that reduces the resonant frequency. The hypothesis of electromagnetic coupling (or shortcuts) between corners fully explains why the resonant frequency of pre-fractal antennas is much larger than what could be expected from the wire length only, and why it stagnates as the number of IFS iterations increases. The antenna must be designed or tapped in such a way as to minimize this problem. As a result of the electromagnetic coupling hypothesis, some guidelines for the design of small antennas have been derived. An antenna design that follows these guidelines, the two-arm spiral antenna, has the smallest possible size for a given resonant frequency. The design of wire small antennas using pre-fractal geometries has the advantage of using an easily programmable IFS algorithm to pack a long wire into a given volume. However, the mere fact of being a pre-fractal object does not imply that the degree of miniaturization and antenna parameters are optimum. As in any other kind of antenna, it is in fact the antenna geometry what determines the radiation behaviour. The previous conception that fractal antenna is equivalent to optimum miniaturization and bandwidth is
www.hireme.geek.nz/ATSC-8VSB-fractal-antenna.html 4/11

9/20/13

ATSC 8VSB Fractal Antennas

perhaps a misunderstanding of the well-known Hansens statement: To obtain performance closer to the minimum (Quality) "Q" curve the spherical volume must be used more effectively. Some pre-fractal antennas have a slightly smaller electrical size than its conventional counterparts while maintaining their main radiation parameters (quality factor and loss efficiency). This has been assessed for planar monopole configurations, but other fractal antenna types are still being accessed. It may be wise to mix different kinds of fractal antennas and feeder structures to obtain an antenna with maximal efficiency. It may be wise to heavily tap some kinds of fractal antenna structures to minimize reverse currents that decrease antenna efficiency.

Ideally this kind of fractal antenna should be mountable on a vertical Venetian track blind. A window blind is a window covering composed of long strips of fabric or rigid material. Examples include shutters, Venetian blinds, roller shades and curtain-like track blinds. A blind limits outside observation and thus blinds the observer to the view. The main types are slat blinds which can be opened in two ways and solid blinds.

Suggested structure ("Concatenated Horizontal H trees")

www.hireme.geek.nz/ATSC-8VSB-fractal-antenna.html

5/11

9/20/13

ATSC 8VSB Fractal Antennas

each antenna replicated vertically equal 150 cm height each subunit being about 6 cm2 each antenna sub element minimum size should be 0.8 mm each antenna sub element minimum size should be 1.6 mm each antenna sub element increment step should be 0.2 mm

www.hireme.geek.nz/ATSC-8VSB-fractal-antenna.html

6/11

9/20/13

ATSC 8VSB Fractal Antennas

Illustrated above : Manufactured fractal antennas with target fractal dimension ~1.58 compared with the size of 10 euro cents. All antennas are assumed to be tapped at the bottom vertex or valley of the "V".
www.hireme.geek.nz/ATSC-8VSB-fractal-antenna.html 7/11

9/20/13

ATSC 8VSB Fractal Antennas

From Left to Right and by columns : Delta-Wired Sierpinski monopoles (DWS); Y-Wired Sierpinski monopoles (YWS); Sierpinski Arrowhead monopoles (SA); and Koch-1 Sierpinski monopoles (K1S). Note: Each step down each column is the next fractal antenna iteration, from 1 to 5.

Intellectual property issues Because of the complexity of "fine tuning" antennas for optimal broadband performance (as TV antennas mainly operate below 1.0 GHz), it can be broadly agreed upon that fractal antennas [that are designed to operate in the VHF & UHF TV bands] should be patentable. This "patentability context" should only apply to getting multiple types of fractal antennas integrated (and optimized) onto a planar surface, with applicable control mechanisms to reduce consumer annoyance with the antenna system. However, for fractal antennas operating from 90 MHz to 900 MHz this "patentability rule" should not apply unless there is a profound issue of miniaturization involved (an antenna size reduction of at least ~100:1, per targeted wavelength bands). this "patentability rule" should not apply where the antenna is otherwise simple AND is designed for NON-PROFESSIONAL USE. Entities with "Fractal Antenna Patents" fractus.com/index.php/fractus/patents/ (many of these patents have been wrongly granted) fractenna.com/our/patented.html (many of these patents have been wrongly granted) People do have the right to take existing fractal antenna designs and create their own distinct designs -- providing that the design shows either distinct intellectual or artistic effort. This is not only to keep costs down for the consumer, but to allow for innovation in design. In some nations, artistic designs are copyrightable -- but this should legal context should not be abused by antenna designers to artificially create a design monopoly. As fractal antennas only mere imitations of nature, there needs to be a limit the extent that any fractal antenna can be patented or copyrighted. Most importantly of all : the antenna's bandwidth, gain, selectivity and efficiency should be fully disclosed to the consumer.
www.hireme.geek.nz/ATSC-8VSB-fractal-antenna.html 8/11

9/20/13

ATSC 8VSB Fractal Antennas

Further technical reading General DTV transmission technologies Single-sideband modulation (the parent waveform of NTSC, PAL and SECAM as well as 8VSB) 8VSB (the transmission waveform that is problematic due to it being a single carrier wave system) Fractal antennas (the kind of antenna that can reduce 80% of the impact of 8VSB fade events) Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB the core standard that the ATSC implements) Digital terrestrial television (the general category for terrestrial HDTV broadcasting) ATSC Standards (the core HDTV transmission standards implemented in North America) ATSC tuner (the device affected by poor antenna performance) E-VSB (the standard for transmission and reception that the FCC and CRTC has failed to make mandatory) Orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (the basis of DVB-T, ISDB (SBTVD) & DMB) ISDB (transmission standard adopted by Japan, after technical rejection of DVB-T) SBTVD-T (transmission standard to be adopted by Brazil, based on ISDB) DVB-T (transmission standard adopted by the EBU after technical rejection of 8VSB; MPEG2 is the default video type) DVB-T2 (the successor to DVB-T, for digital terrestrial television) DVB_S2 (the successor to DVB-T, for TVRO) DMB-T/H (transmission standard based on DVB-T, after rejection of some weak points in DVB-T standard) Transmission systems MPEG-4 SLS (not implemented in DTV, but all DTV audio is MPEG-4 aka AAC) Bitrate peeling (not implemented in DTV) Transport stream (the MPEG datastream that is damaged by poor antenna performance) MPEG-2 (the MPEG-2 video datastream that depends on the MPEG Transport Stream to operate) MPEG-4 (some DVB countries use MPEG2 or MPEG4 or both, SBTVD is MPEG4 only) Fractals general information Fractals (general category) List of fractals by Hausdorff Dimension (2D fractals with Horizontal_dimension > 0.66 are preferable, Horizontal_dimension < 2.5 recommended) Scale invariance (what fractal antennas exploit to decrease their size and increase their bandwidth) Diffusion-limited aggregation (when separately coupled to H-fractal antenna element, could smooth out gain over "extended octave" ranges) Fractal antennas Fractal antenna (general technology category) Z-order curve [adequate but suboptimal for this kind of antenna] H-fractal (antenna theory overall suggests that this shape is highly optimal for reception of Horizontal or Vertical polarized signals)
www.hireme.geek.nz/ATSC-8VSB-fractal-antenna.html 9/11

9/20/13

ATSC 8VSB Fractal Antennas

Pythagoras tree (in a modified form would make a good DTV antenna) Apollonian gasket (some versions of this form would make good antennas) Penrose tiling (can generate usable antennas) Hilbert curve (has been used to make fractal antennas) Sierpinski carpet (in a modified form is used to make broadband mobile phone antennas) Hexaflake (has been used to make experimental antennas, a 7 sided polygon could yield better results) Antenna system issues Microstrip Antenna (a technology needed in the construction of these antennas) Spurline & Stripline (are related structural technologies needed and necessary in the construction and manufacture of fractal antennas) Signal trace (the kind of technology that can be used to make fractal antennas that could be mounted on window blinds) Antenna Polarization (general electromagnetic theory) Linear polarization (Most broadcasters in North America use transmission antennas that are 60% Horizontally polarized, 40% Vertical polarized -- this polarization ratio gives the best performance for most in home television antennas. Low power relay antennas (under 2 kw) may be polarized in "Horizontal" or "Vertical" mode exclusively.) Circular polarization (the kind of antenna preferred for VHF broadcasters, but is almost exclusively used for UHF Television transmission in North America.) Television bands Very high frequency (band used by DTV broadcasters, has some impulse noise immunity problems) Ultra high frequency (band used exclusively in Europe for DTV broadcasting, very low noise immunity in this band) Antenna mounting areas Window blind (structure where this antenna should be mounted) Mini blind (probably not suitable for fractal antennas) Regulators (North America, where ATSC 8VSB HDTV has been adopted) FCC (a regulator that has failed to make Error Correction and Secondary Anti Fading signal mandatory) Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC: a regulator that has failed to make Error Correction and Secondary Anti Fading signal mandatory) http://www.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/smt-gst.nsf/eng/sf01229.html ("BETS-7 - Technical Standards and Requirements for Radio Apparatus Capable of Receiving Television Broadcasting" a CRTC reception requirements document that fails to specify Enhanced VSB) Secretariat of Communication and Transportation (a regulator that has failed to make Error Correction and Secondary Anti Fading signal mandatory) Companies that produce fractal antennas
www.hireme.geek.nz/ATSC-8VSB-fractal-antenna.html 10/11

9/20/13

ATSC 8VSB Fractal Antennas

European Union : fractus.com North America : fractenna.com Asia-Pacific : NONE are known as of 15 March 2013.

Created by Max Power, CEO [Power Broadcasting]

Initial idea 15 June 2007

Document created 25 June 2008

Last modified 27 August 2013 (Footer)

Document Revision State Final

www.hireme.geek.nz/ATSC-8VSB-fractal-antenna.html

11/11