"gareth" wrote in message ...



I wonder if anyone takes a more scientifc approach by measurement and then
calculation, such as by Smith Chartification?

================================================== =================

Yes, the world's Navies do. I worked for the US Navy for many years so I
know much of what they do.

On HF, a few transmissions are made on whips with base-mounted couplers to
bring the whip to resonance.

The remainder are by broadband antennas (2 - 6, 4 - 12, 10 - 30 MHz) These
broadband antennas are fed through matching networks that had to bring them
within the 3:1 circle on the Smith Chart. During inspections, we had to
sweep them and we reported any that failed. (Some of our tasks were
find-and-fix, most were not.)

We used an Anritsu something-or-other as the sweeper. It had ten memories,
so we could store profiles for multiple antenna ranges. Although I want one
for home, they're far too expensive for me. I have an AA-54 from RigExpert.
It's the Poor Man's Anritsu.

"Sal"
(KD6VKW)