Living in a rural area in Missouri, it has been a struggle to get both a mobile phone signal and television reception in my home. I have tried all the different antennas and cell-boosters I can get my hands on, all of them promising to solve my problem and none of them even coming close. I had almost given up hope until I saw a presentation by the CEO of a small Utah-based company called ChamTech at this years “Solve for X” forum.

In eleven minutes, Anthony Sutera shined a bright light into the black hole of connectivity in which we live by demonstrating a new spray-on technology that can turn almost anything into a high-poweredantenna. By high-powered, we mean that this technology can improve the range of a RFID tag from five feet to almost 700 feet. That’s impressive.

The secret behind the technology are the nanocapacitors that are suspended in the paint-like mixture. When they are applied in the right pattern, they are able to both charge and discharge very rapidly, which does away with the heat issue of regular metal or copper antennas. As with any electronic, heat is bad and in this case can interfere with reception. Of course, the technology behind the product is a closely kept secret, but I did get to speak with a rep from the company to confirm that all the claims that Sutera made in the Solve for X forum have been documented and confirmed. Right now the company’s main customer is the US Military, so it’s safe to assume that ChamTech is legit.

The unnamed product is currently not available for consumer purchase, but the company rep I spoke with on the phone mentioned that some big news is coming up in the next two weeks for the company. When I asked about such uses as creating a television antenna out of a large board that was on my roof, the response I got was “I can’t comment on that, but isn’t having a house with large attic space a nice thing?” While not an official confirmation, I am excited about his question because it’s exactly what I had in mind (and I know you did as well) when I first heard about the presentation. One of the other things that the rep was totally clear on is that this isn’t a process of spray-painting an item haphazardly and then magically getting an antenna as a result. There is a process in which it must be applied, one in which they will be working with manufacturers to perfect in the future.

Some other potential applications for the nanoparticle spray is being able to create better antennas for mobile phones, as well as broadband access for vehicles in the form of the painted white lane-stripes that are standard across the country. While we wouldn’t want ChamTech to paint everything in sight and make the world one giant antenna, this has amazing potential for the future.