Roy Lewallen wrote:
The total current ("standing wave current" in Cecil's parlance)
certainly does have an associated phase angle, and its phasor certainly
does rotate.

The standing wave current phasor in a 1/2WL thin-wire dipole *DOES
NOT ROTATE* and is fixed *CONSTANT AT ZERO DEGREES*. Please reference
Figure 14-2 in Kraus' "Antennas for All Applications", 3rd edition,
page 464. It shows *ZERO* phase shift in the standing wave current
from tip to tip in the 1/2WL thin-wire antenna. It is obvious from
the standing wave current equation that the phase angle doesn't
change with position.

This one misconception is what has got you and Tom totally confused.
Please correct your misconception. It's the forward current phasor
and reflected current phasor that does the rotating. Since they are
rotating in opposite directions, the phasor sum of those two
phasors is essentially *CONSTANTLY ZERO ACCORDING TO Kraus*.

(By "phase" I mean time phase.) A sinusoidal traveling
current wave can be expressed as a phasor whose value is a function of
position. When you add a forward traveling wave to a reverse traveling
wave, you're adding two phasors. The result is a phasor whose value is
the vector sum of those two phasors. This is the total current. It has
magnitude and phase like any other phasor, and the same rotational speed
as its components. A common manifestation of this is the standing wave
pattern along a transmission line.

Roy, those two phasors that get added are *ROTATING IN OPPOSITE
DIRECTIONS!* The phase of the sum of those two phasors is *CONSTANT*!
If you had read: http://www.qsl.net/w5dxp/current.htm you would
know that already. That's the mistake that you and Tom have been
making for years and you are still making the same arrogant mistake.

Don't you believe what Gene Fuller posted?
************************************************** ******************
Regarding the cos(kz)*cos(wt) term in a standing wave:

Gene Fuller, W4SZ wrote:
In a standing wave antenna problem, such as the one you describe, there is no
remaining phase information. Any specific phase characteristics of the traveling
waves died out when the startup transients died out.

Phase is gone. Kaput. Vanished. Cannot be recovered. Never to be seen again.

The only "phase" remaining is the cos (kz) term, which is really an amplitude
description, not a phase. The so-called "phase reversal" in longer antennas is
not really about phase either. It is merely a representation of the periodic
sign reversal seen in a cosine function.
************************************************** *******************

In a transmission line with two current waves traveling in opposite
directions, the phase of the total wave changes with position along the
line.

No, it does NOT! at least not by more than a few degrees. In
Func(kx)*Func(wt), the phase is divorced from position on the line.
If you don't believe me, would you believe EZNEC? When I told Tom
that I had measured unchanging phase all along a dipole, you said
EZNEC shows the same thing.

Only in the special case where the two waves are equal in
amplitude (i.e., when the line is lossless and open or shorted at the
end) does the phase of the total current -- the sum of the forward and
reverse traveling waves -- turn out to be the same at all points along
the line. This can be easily seen from the very well known equations
describing wave behavior on transmission lines.

That's true. Now take a look at Kraus' diagram referenced above. Kraus
assumes the forward current and the reflected current on a 1/2WL thin-
wire dipole are *EQUAL* in magnitude. The same assumption is approximately
true for a 75m mobile antenna.

There's no special "standing wave current" that's a "misnomer" or which
is a phasor which "doesn't rotate". The total current is indeed a phasor
-- its rotation speed is the rotational frequency, 2 * pi * f, just like
the traveling wave components from which it can be made by simple addition.

Sorry, Roy, you are just wrong on that one. Please dust off your old
math book. Func(kx)*Func(wt) DOESN'T ROTATE with 'x'. For any 'x', it
just stands there exchanging energy between the E-field and H-field.

I think the problem Cecil is having ...

Methinks you had better do something about that beam in your own eye
rather than worry about the speck in mine.

... with it is that the currents on an
antenna behave in a manner that's similar to an open circuited
transmission line, which results in the phase angle of the total current
-- which can be represented as a phasor -- being the same at every point
along the line.

That's not a problem. That's exactly what Kraus and EZNEC both say.
You are the one having a problem with it and you really need to correct
your misconceptions before the discussion can progress.
--
73, Cecil http://www.qsl.net/w5dxp