On Tue, 08 Nov 2005 02:09:13 GMT, Cecil Moore wrote:

Owen Duffy wrote:
Using TLDETAILS to work up a load of 16+j0 on 100m of Wireman551
ladder-line at 30MHz, the predicted VSWR varies between 25 at the load
end and a very modest 6.5 at the generator end, yet the predicted loss
is around 6dB. Some might not find that an acceptable loss.

If 100m (325 feet) of ladder-line results in 6dB loss, then a more
realistic 75 feet of ladder-line will result in about 1.4 dB of loss.

Close, I make it 2.2dB. (The loss per meter is not a constant figure
in this situation.) Agreed, even that is not a large amount, and
indeed might be quite acceptable in many / most cases.

That's only 1/4 of an S-unit on the highest frequency HF band and less
on the other bands. That's perfectly acceptable to me and virtually
indistinguishable on an S-meter.

If you have to resort to 325 feet of ladder-line on 30 MHz to try
to prove me wrong, I feel really sorry for you. Why didn't you choose
a million feet to prove me even more wrong? It appears that you are
lurking there in the down under outback just waiting for me to forget
to cross an 'i' or dot a 't'.

Cecil, people often employ long runs of open wire feed on HF (ie up to
30MHz), and it just shows that on longer runs, high VSWR can be an
issue for ladder line.

I often hear Rules of Thumb (ROT) like VSWR 3 is OK for coax and
25 if fine for open wire, or the converse... but something is lost in
the brief expression of those ROTs, and it seems more and more the
knowledge base of our hobby is the ROTs, rather than the underlying
principles. There is an appeal to the new experts in our hobby to
pickup the ROTs and parrot them... perhaps we need to take the time to
qualify what we say where learners are listening.

Owen
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