FOIAWEAR — GAP-JUMPING ANTENNA / No Physical Connection Tee

FOIAWEAR / ARCHIVE SERIES 054 — GAP-JUMPING ANTENNA

What looked like a concrete ball was actually a “gap-jumping antenna,” removed from one of the preformed concrete columns in the U.S. embassy office building in Moscow.

U.S. investigators called it “gap-jumping” because it coupled magnetically with a matching antenna in the adjacent column. That is the whole idea: data was transmitted between the two without a physical electrical connection — no wire, no contact, no splice to find.

It was in the structure itself, inside the column. The building was the device, and the only thing joining the two halves of it was a magnetic field across a gap.

The artwork is drawn as a cutaway technical plate — the two concrete column sections standing either side of the gap, the lattice of antenna elements embedded in each, the field lines arcing across the space between them, and the small transmitting and receiving units at the base. Above sits an inset of the paired elements, and below it the field pattern itself: two coils coupled across an air gap, which is all a gap-jumping antenna ever was.

Offered in twelve garment colours, printed as two different plates rather than one image re-toned. On the dark garments (Black, Graphite, Espresso, Navy, Pepper) the plate prints with grey columns, a terracotta lattice and red field lines directly on the cloth, so the cutaway reads against dark. On the light garments (White, Ivory, Butter, Chalky Mint, Light Green, Blossom, Chambray) it is drawn again as a dark-ink plate for pale cloth — heavy charcoal line work, the columns in deep grey, and the field lines in a deep red.

The QR code on the front opens the museum artifact page for the antenna — https://www.cia.gov/legacy/museum/artifact/gap-jumping-antenna-out-of-us-embassy-in-moscow/

Note: the description above is as published with the artifact. No photograph of the antenna is reproduced in the artwork. This is an independent design work and is not an official publication; it is not affiliated with any government or agency.

Garment: Comfort Colors 1717 garment-dyed t-shirt. Heavyweight 6.1 oz/yd² (206.8 g/m²), 100% ring-spun US cotton, pre-shrunk, relaxed fit, double-needle stitched with no side seams and a sewn-in label. Sizes S–4XL. Printed on the front at 300 DPI; plain back. The main artwork prints at 10 × 10 in and the QR at 1.8 × 1.8 in.

Care: machine wash cold, inside out, with like colours. Tumble dry low. Do not iron directly on the printed area.

FOIAWEAR is an independent brand and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to the Central Intelligence Agency, the United States government, or any other government or agency.