New Antenna Enables Digital Cellphones to Work with Hearing Aids

DAMAX International and United Plastics (UPG) have announced an alliance in which UPG will manufacture DAMAX antennas, and assist the company in sale of its antennas worldwide. DAMAX antennas will be installed by UPG inside special handset back plates designed to keep user hands off the antenna, and matched to fit some of the latest model handsets sold worldwide from the second quarter of the year.

"The new technology eliminates nearly 100% of handset signal loss to the hand and head, more than doubles battery life, and reduces dropped calls. It also makes digital handsets, for the first time, hearing aid-compatible because it directs nearly 100% of handset's signals, which cause the noise, away from the head," said Greg Johnson, DAMAX chief technology officer.

"Compared to the noise generated by signals emitted from a handset's standard antenna, tests by one of the world's largest hearing aid manufacturers using two popular new digital handsets showed DAMAX antennas eliminated interference with all of the hearing aids tested," said Johnson.

"The really good news for more than 14 million people in the U.S. and European Union, and millions more worldwide who wear hearing aids is they can now use digital handsets noise-free," said Bill Luxon, DAMAX chief executive officer.

"Cellphone antennas today transmit signals in all directions at once causing handsets to lose half of their signal strength to the hand and head," said Johnson. "This signal loss wastes battery power and reduces each handset's ability to communicate with cell sites, which can cause poor reception and dropped calls. We fix this problem by more than doubling battery life, providing better call quality, and more than doubling the range of the phones.

"Federal Communications Commission (FCC) certified lab reports also show DAMAX antennas reduced SAR levels for PCS and GSM handsets to as low as 0.0033, nearly eliminating SARs for the handsets tested. Other tests also showed SAR as low as 0.121 for AMPS, 800 TDMA, and PCS TDMA in 824-849 MHz and 1850-1910 MHz, which represents levels nearly 100 percent below the 1.6 watts per kilogram limit set by the FCC," said Johnson."

Posted to the site on 26th February 2003