On 8 Jan, 17:26, "AI4QJ" wrote:
"Richard Clark" wrote in message

...

Now, if you want to discard EZNEC (which for some odd reason you seem
to approach method of moments with a sneer), conventional methods
would still bear out the same results.

The NEC program is just a computer model, for discussion purposes only. I
think there are far too many variables in real life for the program to take
into account. It may be valuable but I am not yet convinced it is
infallible.

Lord knows I've sat at the
bench doing it the conventional way for thousands of measurements.

That is the only way to do it in my opinion. I am not very convinced that
the NEC models can be used as a first source to support any proposals in
these discussions although they are useful as a secondary level of
corroboration. Although we accept them because we are usually too busy to
perform hardware measurements, at least one should consider exactly how one
"would" or "could" make a hardware emasurement in real life. The less likely
you are able to measure in real life, the more likely your proposal is heavy
on abstractions and light on reality. For example. I think the more
significant recent developments in quantum theory, such as "string theory",
although they may attract a lot of research dollars to fund professors at
our Universities, are actually quite useless in practice because no one will
ever be able to prove it true by empirical measurments. I can say "God
created the universe" which may seem plausible until I am challenged to
prove the existence of God, which I cannot now and never will be able to do.
Belief requires faith or even a suspension of logical thought, neither of
which I am prepared to do for science.

I've probably made more physical measurements in a day, than anyone
here has in a lifetime.

Others, don't bore us with indignities about all your SWR meter
readings in reply to that last statement. * :-)

So now to the shoe you dropped:
I know this was not your
main point, it was just an aside, but I don't agree with it

What was my main point, and how is yours conflict with it?

You were arguing about an SWR on a NEC model being 8:1, due, I have heard,
to an erroneous assumption of Zo. No problem with me. But when you made an
assertion that I thought could not be measured easily, I hesitated to take
it true using faith based science. As you can see, the NEC model falls apart
by making one simple erroneous assumption. Or was it? You can argue about
that. That is the problem with these models, nobody is so intelligent that
they are free of errors and no model is infallible either.

Is yours a
philosophical triviality so common to these threads, or does it come
with physical measurements experience?

It is philosophical as above but I do not consider it trivial. To me it was
not a waste of time; thanks for the exchange Richard.

AI4QJ

Oh my!
I wish I was as eloquent as you. You would explained the problem so
much better than I did. When an assumption was made in addition to the
use of Maxwell's laws it was to make the program conform with known
results. And then the assuption made regarding sino soidal current
flow was made is found to be in error, thus the absolute validity of
the programs comes into question. Were they generated to follow
Maxwells laws explicably or were they made to reflect empirical
results? I suspect that Maxwells laws overode external human
influences
imposed by the programmer who are not infallable
Best regards
Art Unwin...KB9MZ...xg (uk).