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#1
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Relationship Between Antenna Efficiency and Received Signal Strength
On Thursday, January 23, 2014 8:21:27 PM UTC-6, Jerry Stuckle wrote:
On 1/23/2014 7:18 PM, wrote: On Wednesday, January 22, 2014 4:32:31 PM UTC-6, Irv Finkleman wrote: Q. Is there a relationship between the efficiency of an antenna and the received signal strength? Signal to noise ratio, very little. Received signal level vs a more efficient antenna, can be quite a bit. But if the s/n is appx the same, no biggie.. Lower level on the S meter, but things should sound about the same when listening to it. You forgot the noise generated by the receiver. With a weaker signal, the S/N ration will be lower. That would be an issue on VHF/UHF. We are talking HF here. On HF, external noise picked up by the antenna is almost surely going to greatly swamp any internal receiver noise. Assuming a decent receiver anyway, and the one he has should be fairly good. That's one reason why I say if the background noise increases when connecting the antenna, it should be good enough. If it doesn't, there could be a problem. But it will take a really dead antenna system to be like that on HF. Even just sticking a 5 feet piece of wire into the center pin of a decent receiver will cause the noise level to increase, and thus be a fairly viable antenna. Not that it's going to pick up everything, but it should pick up quite a bit. Note the portable SW radios with short whips, etc.. |
#3
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Relationship Between Antenna Efficiency and Received Signal Strength
On Thursday, January 23, 2014 9:45:31 PM UTC-6, Jerry Stuckle wrote:
It is also an issue on HF, especially with less expensive receivers. You don't see it on the S-Meter because the meter is set such that the typical receiver noise doesn't show up. But it is there. And it does affect weak signal intelligibility. I didn't say that internal receiver noise would show on the S meter. I suppose it's possible receiver noise could effect weak signal reception on HF, but it's going to have to be a really low level not to override the internal receiver noise on any modern radio, unless it's some kind of abnormal birdy or whatever. I just don't see it being a much of a problem on HF, particularly 20m. If external noise or signals picked up by the antenna don't override the internal receiver noise on 20m, something is broke somewhere. And if the system is that broke, might as well forget anyone hearing him, particularly running QRP. He should do OK with a small loop as long as it's built and working right. |
#4
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Relationship Between Antenna Efficiency and Received Signal Strength
On 1/24/2014 6:40 AM, wrote:
On Thursday, January 23, 2014 9:45:31 PM UTC-6, Jerry Stuckle wrote: It is also an issue on HF, especially with less expensive receivers. You don't see it on the S-Meter because the meter is set such that the typical receiver noise doesn't show up. But it is there. And it does affect weak signal intelligibility. I didn't say that internal receiver noise would show on the S meter. I suppose it's possible receiver noise could effect weak signal reception on HF, but it's going to have to be a really low level not to override the internal receiver noise on any modern radio, unless it's some kind of abnormal birdy or whatever. I just don't see it being a much of a problem on HF, particularly 20m. If external noise or signals picked up by the antenna don't override the internal receiver noise on 20m, something is broke somewhere. And if the system is that broke, might as well forget anyone hearing him, particularly running QRP. He should do OK with a small loop as long as it's built and working right. Low antenna efficiency affects not only the received signal, but the received noise. And yes, many inexpensive "modern" receivers suffer from poor front ends. And since transistors (especially bipolar) typically generate more noise than tubes, noise can be a worse problem now than in the 60's. You can get low noise transistors, but these are more expensive. -- ================== Remove the "x" from my email address Jerry Stuckle ================== |
#5
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Relationship Between Antenna Efficiency and Received Signal Strength
"Jerry Stuckle" wrote in message ... And yes, many inexpensive "modern" receivers suffer from poor front ends. And since transistors (especially bipolar) typically generate more noise than tubes, noise can be a worse problem now than in the 60's. You can get low noise transistors, but these are more expensive. -- How did ou come up with transistors generate more noise than tubes ? Most of my research into low noise has been above 50 mhz and the beter tubes generate much more noise than transistors. The older U310 devices have a noise figure less than 2 db at 150 mhz and a 6cw4 will have around 3 db. Cheap gaasfets have noise figuers less than 1 db. I seem to remember that most tube sets of the old days were stating about .5 uv senstivity on ssb, and many of todays ham trasceivers are way less than that. --- This email is free from viruses and malware because avast! Antivirus protection is active. http://www.avast.com |
#6
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Relationship Between Antenna Efficiency and Received Signal Strength
On 1/24/2014 10:58 AM, Ralph Mowery wrote:
"Jerry Stuckle" wrote in message ... And yes, many inexpensive "modern" receivers suffer from poor front ends. And since transistors (especially bipolar) typically generate more noise than tubes, noise can be a worse problem now than in the 60's. You can get low noise transistors, but these are more expensive. -- How did ou come up with transistors generate more noise than tubes ? Almost 50 years of experience, including studying both tubes and transistors in my EE courses back in the 70's. Plus measurements of both received and transmitted signals, using lab-grade test equipment. The easiest way of seeing it is looking at the output of both tube and transistorized transmitters on a spectrum analyzer. You will see much more hash on the transistorized transmitter. Back in the 70's, I ran a CAP repeater from my home. Transmit and receive antennas were separated by about 25' vertically. It was a surplus Motorola tube rig, running 25W. I was able to run it without any desense without duplexers. Yes, the channel spacing was 4.25Mhz, but you can't do that with a transistorized rig. Most of my research into low noise has been above 50 mhz and the beter tubes generate much more noise than transistors. The older U310 devices have a noise figure less than 2 db at 150 mhz and a 6cw4 will have around 3 db. Cheap gaasfets have noise figuers less than 1 db. Yes, nowadays, there are transistors with lower noise figures. But they are relatively expensive, and you won't find them in the less expensive receivers. I seem to remember that most tube sets of the old days were stating about .5 uv senstivity on ssb, and many of todays ham trasceivers are way less than that. Plus or minus, that is about right. But that wasn't because of the tubes; they could have done better but it would have required more amplification and higher cost. Plus with a decent antenna, the atmospheric noise was higher than that, so there was no need for more amplification. It would have just been lost in the AGC circuitry. Even back in the early 70's, commercial tube VHF radios could easily get ..15mv for 20db S+N/N ratio. Not much different than the transistorized versions today. --- This email is free from viruses and malware because avast! Antivirus protection is active. http://www.avast.com -- ================== Remove the "x" from my email address Jerry Stuckle ================== |
#7
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Relationship Between Antenna Efficiency and Received Signal Strength
"Jerry Stuckle" wrote in message ... How did ou come up with transistors generate more noise than tubes ? Almost 50 years of experience, including studying both tubes and transistors in my EE courses back in the 70's. Plus measurements of both received and transmitted signals, using lab-grade test equipment. The easiest way of seeing it is looking at the output of both tube and transistorized transmitters on a spectrum analyzer. You will see much more hash on the transistorized transmitter. Back in the 70's, I ran a CAP repeater from my home. Transmit and receive antennas were separated by about 25' vertically. It was a surplus Motorola tube rig, running 25W. I was able to run it without any desense without duplexers. Yes, the channel spacing was 4.25Mhz, but you can't do that with a transistorized rig. I think you are mixing apples and oranges. For transmiters the tubes usually have less broad band noise. One reason is not the tube, but the tuned circuits are much more selective. With the high impedance of the tubes it is easy to be very selective due to the circuit Q. For a receiver, it is still all about the noise figuer and having enough gain (which is not usually a problem) to overcome the noise of the other parts of the receiver. Yes, you could run the CAP repeater with seperate antennas with tubes where you could not with the transistors. As above the circuit selectivity has alot to do with it. Tube circuits are much more selective when it comes to broad band noise. Many transistor receivers are broad band in the first few RF stages. That gives two problems to over come. Broad band noise for the transmitter (which I am not talking about) and the broad RF stages of the receiver (Not noise of the transistor/fet but poor selectivity). The old GE Mastr ll is one of the few that has a fairly narrow front end. I have one of those on 2 meters. What do you call relative expensive for a transistor/fet that has a noise figuer of around 1 db ? Even in some of the old ARRL repeater handbooks they are putting fet preamps ahead of the tube receivers. What tubes are you talking about that has an under 2 db noise figuer at 150 mhz ? I think there was a 417 and maybe a 416 that might make it, but they were very expensive, especially the 416. --- This email is free from viruses and malware because avast! Antivirus protection is active. http://www.avast.com |
#8
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Relationship Between Antenna Efficiency and Received Signal Strength
On Fri, 24 Jan 2014 13:04:48 -0500, Jerry Stuckle
wrote: The easiest way of seeing it is looking at the output of both tube and transistorized transmitters on a spectrum analyzer. You will see much more hash on the transistorized transmitter. Amazing. You might see more hash with a synthesized transistor xmitter, but for crystal controlled, they noise is quite a bit less with transistors. Back in the 70's, I ran a CAP repeater from my home. Transmit and receive antennas were separated by about 25' vertically. It was a surplus Motorola tube rig, running 25W. I was able to run it without any desense without duplexers. Yes, the channel spacing was 4.25Mhz, but you can't do that with a transistorized rig. Amazing. These days, 2 meter repeaters do 0.600 MHz spacing using all transistor equipment, a single antenna, and a notch type duplexer. Yes, nowadays, there are transistors with lower noise figures. But they are relatively expensive, and you won't find them in the less expensive receivers. Rubbish. pHEMT devices are available with 0.75dB NF at 1GHz for under $3/ea. For example: http://www.minicircuits.com/pdfs/PSA4-5043+.pdf Note that this isn't just a single device but a MMIC amplifier capable of belching 100 mw (+20dBm) with 1dB gain compression. I seem to remember that most tube sets of the old days were stating about .5 uv senstivity on ssb, and many of todays ham trasceivers are way less than that. That depends on the frequency. The atmospheric noise is so high on the lower HF bands that improvments in receiver sensitivity simply results in amplifying both the noise and the signal but the same amount, resulting in no net improvement in signal to noise ratio (SNR). Adding more gain also decreases the receiver dynamic range because at high signal levels, the added gain will cause the receiver to overload at a lower signal level. Hint: Use only as much gain as necessary and no more. Plus or minus, that is about right. But that wasn't because of the tubes; they could have done better but it would have required more amplification and higher cost. Plus with a decent antenna, the atmospheric noise was higher than that, so there was no need for more amplification. It would have just been lost in the AGC circuitry. Mostly I agree except for the part about AGC. If your receiver is already into AGC for weak signal conditions, you're effectively reducing the receiver sensitivity at the same time. The way AGC is suppose to work for a SSB receiver is that the AGC starts just above the level where you can hear an intelligible signal. 12dB SINAD is about right. If the AGC were perfect (i.e. no slope), then any increase in signal level above that point will result in no improvement in SNR because the AGC will do its best to keep the SNR constant. With a real AGC (dual slope, controlled attack and release time) the SNR improves somewhat as the input level increases until it reaches some SNR, where it levels off. I think this is called "ultimate SNR" or something similar, which is just the SNR of a very strong receive signal. Even back in the early 70's, commercial tube VHF radios could easily get .15mv for 20db S+N/N ratio. Not much different than the transistorized versions today. I think you might mean 0.15 uv/12dB SINAD. A 0.15mv receiver would be considere comatose. In the 1960's thru about 1983, I was involved in various radio service, radio manufacture, radio sales, and radio consulting companies. I had plenty of experience with everything from wideband GE Pre-Prog thru cellular radios including tubes. I never saw a tube receiver with 0.15uv sensitivity. Photos of the shop and various repeaters. Most were UHF. http://802.11junk.com/jeffl/pics/Old...ers/index.html The main site was on Santiago Pk: http://www.trabucooutdoors.com/assets/images-1/odds_ends/santiagopk.jpg The mess on the far right is the antenna farm. 9 GE Progress Line repeaters with Alpha tone panels (which I helped design). http://802.11junk.com/jeffl/pics/Old%20Repeaters/slides/Santiago-01.html See anything missing? There are no duplexers. There was one receive antenna and 9 transmit antennas. All tubes. With a typically 1uv/12dB SINAD receiver, the isolation was sufficient. Don't ask about the tx intermod, which was horrible. Typically, these tube type repeaters would start out with about 0.5uv/12dB SINAD with new tubes. That's measured directly into the receiver input with no additional filters. After about 6 months, the sensitivity would settle down to about 0.75 to 0.90uv and stay there for about 6 to a year, when it needed retuning. This was using a 6AM4 triode. The only time I saw better sensitivity with tubes was when someone tweaked the audio freq response, or excessively narrowed the IF bandwidth. Somewhat later, in the 1970's, I found myself designing marine radios. Typical VHF sensitivity was about 0.25uv/12dB SINAD using a dual gate MOSFET front end such as a 40673 or 3N212. We ocassionally used JFET's such as a U310 but the sensitivity was about the same. The problem is that 0.15uv is just too close to the receiver noise floor to be realizeable. With a 25KHz receive bandwidth: noise floor = -174dBm/Hz + 10*log(25KHz) = -174 + 10*4.40 = -174 + 44 = -130 dBm or 0.071 uv To obtain a 0.15 uv sensitivity, you would need a receiver noise figure plus a detection SNR of less than: 10 log(0.15/0.071) = 3.3dB With an analog FM demodulator, that's barely possible and usually requires a perfect noise-free front end. However, with a 0.25uv/12dB SINAD sensitivity, there's 5.5dB of margin, which is more than enough for real receivers. Mo http://www.r-390a.net/Receiver-Specifications-Explaned.pdf -- Jeff Liebermann 150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558 |
#9
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Relationship Between Antenna Efficiency and Received Signal Strength
On Friday, January 24, 2014 7:21:42 AM UTC-6, Jerry Stuckle wrote:
Low antenna efficiency affects not only the received signal, but the received noise. Of course. I've already said that several times. But they effect both equally, so the s/n ratio will stay the same assuming the overall level is overriding the recv internal noise. And yes, many inexpensive "modern" receivers suffer from poor front ends. Most will be good enough not to see the problems you are mentioning though. Like I say, you'll have to see almost nothing at all from the antenna system to have that problem. Even my dinky mobile antennas greatly swamp the internal noise, even on 10m, when using my Icom 706mk2g. Heck, I've never had or used an antenna system that was bad enough to see the problem you are mentioning. |
#10
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Relationship Between Antenna Efficiency and Received Signal Strength
On 1/24/2014 5:10 PM, wrote:
On Friday, January 24, 2014 7:21:42 AM UTC-6, Jerry Stuckle wrote: Low antenna efficiency affects not only the received signal, but the received noise. Of course. I've already said that several times. But they effect both equally, so the s/n ratio will stay the same assuming the overall level is overriding the recv internal noise. And my point was - the overall level may NOT be overriding the receiver's internal noise. And to be perfectly accurate, ANY lowering of the external signal decreases the S/N ratio because the internally generated noise does not change. But I also understand what you're getting at. And yes, many inexpensive "modern" receivers suffer from poor front ends. Most will be good enough not to see the problems you are mentioning though. Like I say, you'll have to see almost nothing at all from the antenna system to have that problem. Even my dinky mobile antennas greatly swamp the internal noise, even on 10m, when using my Icom 706mk2g. Heck, I've never had or used an antenna system that was bad enough to see the problem you are mentioning. Yes, most current ham rigs are that good (at least I don't know of any which aren't). But a lot of less expensive general coverage ("SWL") receivers aren't. -- ================== Remove the "x" from my email address Jerry Stuckle ================== |
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