Even though I had been very busy the last couple of months to play around with the battery powered HDTV, I did see something that I wanted to try and build for experimentation purposes.

On the instructables.com page where I learned in greater detail about the fractal antenna that was shown in the now famous youtube video, there was a commenter by the name of “goodjobjohn” who had created a second iteration fractal HDTV antenna and had it etched onto a copper-clad PCB board.

After reading his comments, I noticed that “goodjobjohn” had posted a downloadable image file of his second iteration fractal HDTV antenna that I ended up downloading and printing out to learn more about the concept.

After seeing this printout, I decided to build one of these antennas using the same solid wire technique used in the building of the original fractal antenna and the “coat-hanger” antenna. However, I ran into a problem as I had a hard time with the bending of the wire due to the size of the needle-nose pliers I had to get the critical angles correct. After doing two of the fractals, I stopped what I was doing and decided that I had to figure out a easier and more efficient way to correctly bend these fractals.

I then went to some old hardback electronic component / supplies catalogs I had for reference purposes to look around for better pliers and cutters. While looking around, I came across something that I had forgotten about….

Conductive ink pens

As the bright light lit up while saying “HMMMM….”, I immediately thought about this and decided that I could take my print out of the second iteration fractal and tape it to the back side of a clear sheet of plexiglass and “trace” over the fractals and connecting traces on the top-side of the plexiglass.

I then proceeded to perform this task and after doing this, I got into my vehicle and went shopping around for a conductive ink pen. After trying numerous craft and hobby stores in my area, I finally broke down and decided to (with deep disdain) visit a local “Radio Slack” to see if they had one of these pens in stock.

After walking around all the HDTV’s, DSS dishes, stereos, cellphones, and remote control cars, I finally found the little tiny small section in the back corner where the electronic hobbyist stuff was located in the store (I remember when Radio Shack was at one time 90% parts / supplies and 10 percent satellite dishes, radios, etc.) and found me an conductive ink pen that I procured.

I then went back home and used the conductive ink pen to “trace” over the fractals and connecting traces on the top-side of the plexiglass and let the liquid conductive nickel ink dry and harden up for six hours. After the ink had hardened, I went to the back side of the clear plexiglass and made it white by taping a sheet of white paper to the plexiglass and trimming it out accordingly.

Then I went to the two center squares on the antenna and drilled out a hole large enough in each square for a #6 screw to pass through. Using two #6 hex-head screws and some #6 flat washers, I placed a washer to the head of each screw and fed the screws through the two holes and on the back side of the plexiglass, placed some more washers, attached the 300 to 75 ohm balun and tightened the balun to the screws with two #6 kep-nuts.

It was time to test the new antenna……

Therefore, I affixed the ends of a CATV coaxial cable to the antenna and to the battery powered HDTV and start my general tests.

Like both the original fractal HDTV antenna and the coat-hanger HDTV antenna, I received similar results of receiving 13 out of 14 HDTV stations within a 35 mile radius. Like the other two antennas, I still could not receive the FCC classified low powered station consisting of 15 KW power – compass heading 298° – 21.1 miles away – RF channel 40.

However, I did notice on HDTV band, The second iteration fractal antenna seemed to lock in the signal better than the original fractal antenna, but still not as good as the coat hanger antenna. Now, I have future plans to procure some more plexiglass and try a DB-4 knockoff and a DB-8 knockoff of the second iteration fractal HDTV antenna

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