Jim Kelley wrote:

Cecil Moore wrote:
I honestly don't know what happens when the third port
of the circulator is unterminated

You should think about it because amateur radios don't usually have
circulators on their output, and the result illuminates a corner of the
discussion that you've been pretty closed minded about.

I know what happens if the circulator is not present. I
just don't don't know what happens with an unterminated
circulator.

Maybe you can help me out here. If the load resistors
are removed from the circulators in the previous experiment,
what is the forward power and reflected power readings on
the one second long lossless transmission line during
steady-state?

Without a load on the circulator, you must know that no energy can be
flowing to it or through it. No power is being dissipated by it. What
effect should that have on the total energy in the transmission line,
and why?

Let's remove the circulators and try to figure out what
happens. Let's assume the signal generator is a Thevenin
equivalent with an internal resistance of 50 ohms and not
equipped with a circulator.

200W SG---one second long 50 ohm lossless feedline---100W SG

Would you agree with me that during the first second, the
feedline is loaded with 300 joules because there have been
no reflections? What happens after that depends upon the
reflection coefficients at the signal generators. But the
$64k question is what happens to the original 300 joules?

I hope it's not true about Reg. That would be a huge loss. Perhaps
somebody will archive his website.

One of the posters to the news
of Reg's death was whom I suspect is
Reg's son (or nephew). Humans are mortal and can die at any time.
My son died when he was 8 months old. I wish he had lived as long
as Reg who certainly had a full, useful, and colorful life.
--
73, Cecil http://www.qsl.net/w5dxp