On Apr 2, 11:12 pm, Art Unwin wrote:
On Apr 2, 10:37 pm, wrote:

On Apr 2, 1:41 pm, Art Unwin wrote:

Pray tell me then why I am incorrect. You can salvage the
answer from your own mind or even from a book.
When the air breaks down around an antenna it is because the antenna
is not in a state of equilibrium.

Define equilibrium as it pertains to an antenna. Until you do, it's
fairly hard to comment on the first statement.

I don't think I can do that for you, it would take to long.

It hasn't stopped you from writing a novel on other issues..

If you have corona discharge from an antenna, it's usually due
to sharp points when using wire or a whip with a pointed tip.
Thats why they stick round balls on whips, flagpoles, etc..

When you have a discharge it is a loss of energy

Not antenna efficiency though. It's more akin to running a
dipole with poor end insulators..

When a dipole is replaced by a quad ala
a series circuit is replaced by a tank circuit it clearly shows that
the latter is more efficient.

What clearly shows this?

Well there is no discharge. This is becaquse that there is a route
of a lesser impedance available

Has nothing to do with antenna efficiency.

This is the statement which drew my comment.
The efficiency of a 1/2 WL dipole and a 1 WL loop are so close as
to be almost unmeasurable in the real world.

Almost doesn't count when measuring efficiency and in the real world
many CAN tell the difference But you can take this even farther. Almost *any* size dipole
or loop will radiate most all of what is fed to it.

Again you are admitting to lower efficiency when you use the word
"most"

The only reason I use "most" is because no real world antenna will
radiate 100% of the power applied to it.


A 1/10 WL whip radiates almost all of the power applied to
it, same as a 1/4 WL, 1/2 WL, or whatever you want to try.
This not not conjecture. This is pretty much written in stone
after many years of testing.

Again you use the word "most" which is admitting less efficiency

No, it's admitting that no real antenna will radiate 100% of the
power fed to it. Has nothing to do with a comparison of the
various types.

Why you continue to ignore this simple fact boggles my mind.
So your statement is so far from reality I would be amiss
in my "talking head" duties if I did not comment.
Don't take my word for it. Ask anyone you can think of
that has a clue. They will tell you the same thing.

What it going to spoil your "full size performance from a
dinky radiator" picnic is not the radiator and it's abilities to be
an efficient radiator.
It's going to be actually feeding the power to such a small
radiator and not turning a large amount of RF to heat in the
process. No cheating letting the feed line be the antenna..

I think you are missing the point here. My antenna has a full wave
length of wire
not a fraction there of.

So? From it's claimed performance, it's working as a
great dummy load.
You say it requires no matching to coax, and
covers the whole 160m band..
This simple description tells me your antenna is a
poor radiator of RF. It shows all the qualities of a
air cooled dummy load.
A truly efficient antenna of such a small size would
require matching to the feedline, would be quite high Q,
and the bandwidth would be very narrow.
So narrow as to possibly restrict the audio quality
of the average 2.5- 3 kc transmitter width ..
You can actually hear the restriction on the air.
I've noticed this many times when people try
very small high Q antennas on that band..
This is reciprical, and will be noticed on receive
also if you A/B between a full size antenna vs
the small version.

So the radiator has the same inductance and
capacitance
that one would expect from a full wave antenna spread out in a
straight line

You wish...

where the wire surface is exposed to the atmosphere, so there is no
reason
for the energy to circumvent the wire circuit as it must do for a
fractional wavelength.

Oh, like it does with a 1/2 wave dipole... :/


Look at "small" HF transmitting loops. Do you see any
using 22 gauge wire? I doubt it.
They will be using the fattest or widest strip of material
they can get their hands on.

What you are seeing as representing a loop antenna is a fractional
wave length
Often it comes with a HV variable capacitor for tuning.

The loop that I made was a plastic loop with a full wave length of
wire wound upon it. No high voltage capacitor needed as it coveres
the whole band.

Didn't work very well as a radiator of RF did it...
Good dummy load though I bet...

As far as 22 gauge wire being used this is because there is no
mechanical stresses
imposed on it as would be for a stretched out radiator. So the main
consideration
is to supply enough skin depth since the diameter itself
is not a factor in terms of fusing.current

I didn't know you were trying to construct a fuse box...

There are other issues involved also in feeding such an
antenna. Never do these small loops equal the performance
of a full size antenna. They radiate enough to maybe let
you operate, and thats about it.

If the scource impedance is one that you can match efficiently
then you have at hand a efficient radiator

Like a dummy load?

of a wavelength where
the normal loop you are refering to uses a metal loop as the radiator
which is much shorter than a wavelength of wire wound on a plastic
loop.
The loop is now a small full wave radiator not a small fractional
small wave antenna

No, it's a small antenna, coil loaded with many feet of 22 gauge
wire. In fact, the antenna is pretty much all coil.
Not too much different than a wound loopstick used for MW.
Their virtues as efficient radiators of RF are about nil..



This was firmly proven in Quito.Maximum radiation
efficiency requires equilibrium. Period

Again, the change to quad loops at HCJB was to
avoid the sharp points of the dipoles, yagi's, or
whatever they were using. In the high alitudes of
Quito, HV breakdown at the tips was a serious problem.
The change had absolutely nothing to do with antenna
efficiency.

If the impedance is to high on the antenna compared to
discharging through air to the transmitter ground then that
is a very inefficient antenna

No. It has nothing to do with antenna efficiency.
Antenna efficiency is reciprical from receive to
transmit.
It's like me taking a nearly fully efficient dipole
and running it through a bunch of wet tree branches
with poor insulators, and then running high power.
An antenna that is truly inefficient will be inefficient
on both transmit and receive.
Obviously in the case of the dipole, this is not the
case. When receiving only, I bet it works just fine.


Not to mention that the whole idea of a loop being
more efficient than a dipole is totally wrong.

The energy travels easily along the wire circuit without
encountering a high impedance that it is forced to take a circuitous
route thru ground to the transmitter ground. When the energy
is passing thru ground it becomes a loss.

Where does ground enter the picture?

And I don't see how equilibrium has anything to
do with it, whatever you might mean by that silly "E"
word.

If a circuit is not balanced and a fractional wave length long
it is not in equilibrium!.

But you won't define the E word, so this means little to
me...


The energy supplied to the radiator
will always encounter a energy wasting impedance in the wire itself if
is not at least a wavelength long, and of the right material
(diamagnetic)

Wire resistance does not go away if you use larger lengths of
wire vs shorter when using an equal wire gauge.

otherwise the energy will seek a route outside the wired circuit which
can only lead to losses. Think of it this way, a fractional wave
length radiator
cannot avoid the energy taking a route thru ground and the ground is a
loss.

What about the 1/2 wave dipole?

Hopefully you now see antennas in a different light.

Nope.. Why would I?

I do urge you to
look up
the tank circuit since it is quite an interesting circuit with its
phase changes
and effective resistances apparently changing without being diverted
from the circuit wire confines.

I've already read about tank circuits..

Another place where the books are in
error
is their association with the iron filing magnet experiment at HS
which
forms a magnetic field very different from that formed from aluminum,
copper and other diamagnetic materials. When you pass a time varying
current thru
copper the magnetic field turns at right angles to the radiator axis
and in fact
compliments the electrical field vector ( they are not at right
angles)
Now you can see what lifts or ejects the static particles resting on
the surface
because they are repelled instead of bing magnetically atracted
( Static: nearly devoid of energy and of small mass)

RF is never static..

. So the EH antennas which supposedly combines the EH fields just
didn't
understand that with a radiator the combination of vectors is already
a given!

Which means what?

I think you also are making a mistake that many books make when
referring to
small antennas instead of referring to ELECTRICALLY small antennas

You are thinking wrong.