I'm currently using my 64-core Linux desktop to run a genetic algorithm to optimize my design for an emergency #hamradio antenna. About an hour ago I submitted a patch to the (Haskell) codebase of the optimizer to allow it to support curved wires, which I needed because my design is made of four circular hoops. Despite being a fairly low activity project, the PR was merged within about 10 minutes, which felt awesome.
Am I cool yet? How many more layers of nerd do I have to add before I'm cool?
@ben From here, it looks like you have re-invented the loop yagi. Build it and confirm that it performs as well as your model...then we can talk about coolness.
While researching, I've seen a few similar designs with several different names; "circular quad beam", "cylindrical quad", "E-Z-O" etc.
I'm very new at this so I don't have as much equipment as I'd like for testing this stuff. Just ordered a cheap field strength meter, so hopefully will be able to do better than the "can you hear me now?" test.