K7ITM wrote:
In fact, you don't even need to find the minimum and the maximum
points. Again, given sinusoidal excitation and a uniform line, some
small set of points with accurate amplitude measurement at each will
suffice, since they will uniquely determine the amplitudes of the two
waves and the line attenuation. You would have to know the spacing of
the points and that they were dense enough that there is not a spacial
aliasing problem (points distributed over more than 1/4 wavelength...).

Which points out, once again, that the phase information in a
standing wave is contained in the amplitude, not in the phase.
W7EL measured the *phase* of the standing-wave current which
is known not to contain any information as it is close to
unchanging all along a 1/2WL dipole or 1/4WL monopole. Yet he
reported it as meaningful. So far, nobody has made meaningful
phase shift measurements through a loading coil.

It's common to think of a standing wave as the result of two travelling
waves, one in each direction, but another way to think of a standing
wave pattern is as a pure standing wave plus a pure travelling wave.

One cannot get away from the fact that the pure standing wave
is the superposition of equal amplitude traveling waves flowing
in opposite directions. Some part of the forward traveling wave
must be allocated to the standing wave function. That part of
the traveling wave transfers no energy.

|Ifor| - |Iref| = |Ifor'| the part of the forward traveling wave
that is transferring energy.

|Ifor| - |Ifor'| = |Ifor''| = |Iref| the part of the forward
traveling wave that is contributing to the pure standing wave
and transferring no energy.
--
73, Cecil http://www.qsl.net/w5dxp