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#61
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On Tue, 29 Jun 2004 15:34:42 -0600, John Doty
wrote: You are making the assumption that that the antenna only picks up radiated modes. I am making no such assumption and all following commentary does absolutely nothing to separate the concerns of SWLers from Ham activity. Non-radiated electromagnetic modes are also troublesome, particularly common mode on the transmission line. This tends to be the way that locally generated noise from household gadgets gets into an antenna system. Consider a lamp dimmer that generates 10 mW of RFI, which rides out in common mode on the mains, finds its way to the power cord of your transceiver, rides out on the feedline to the antenna, and then couples back through differential mode to your receiver input. That's not a very efficient coupling path, so suppose it has a loss of 60 dB. You'll still get 10 nW to the receiver. This is a lot: even if it's spread over 30 MHz, it's still 10 uV in a 6 kHz channel. That's S6 on my Drake R-8, a very serious quantity of noise. Let's work with exactly that scenario you offered. S6 (Calibrated) on my Drake TR-7 is -88dBm - so close to your 10µV to be indistinguishable. My TS-430 varies from -80dBm to -73dBm. There is no calibrated S-Meter for my DX-440, but for a $200 SW set, its sensitivity is -90dBm for a full scale meter indication (about 7dB range from top to bottom). All very well and good. Now if we regard this speculation of 10mW (it is, after all, the epitome of a wild ass guess, isn't it?); then, let's reverse engineer that 10nW product from 6kHz buckets over the range of 30MHz to find 50µW which is 23dB below the original power presumably suppressed 60dB. Well, I have either pencil-whipped you, or you me, or each other - the numbers don't add up. Hardly matters given the original specification had no basis in fact. However, if I return to the original "problem" of noise derived from household sources; then that is also something I have closely measured. Across time, frequency, antennas, and known noise sources I have found it as low as S1 for my longwire (an antenna supposedly unused by Hams) to as high as S7 (for that same longwire). My loops, dipoles and verticals hardly fell outside of this range to present any gilt-edge design. With every circuit in the house broken (operating battery power in the dark), average noise level was either S2 for a vertical, or S1 to S3 for a loop (rather upsetting the voodoo of loops being quiet and verticals being noisy). When I returned power to the house by stages, I insured every opportunity of injecting noise by setting dimmers to their worst position (about 50%). In the low bands, I suffered as much as S8 noise levels with an average of S5 when the house was full lit (also including fluorescents) and all noise sources adding to the cacophony of reception. This was for a loop antenna. On the other hand, if your transmitter puts out 1 kW, 60 dB of loss means it only delivers 1 mW of RF to the dimmer, an amount unlikely to interfere with its operation. Reciprocity does not mean *consequences* are symmetrical. This effect of reciprocity has been reported so frequently in this group so as to negate your premise. We have many queries for how to solve this problem. To this point, you have not offered any particularly receive dominated issue that is not already a heavily trafficked topic with transmission antennas. A deep, steerable null can be extremely useful for reception, but its not generally useful for transmission. This really goes off the deep edge. Barring loss introduced for the sake of jimmying the logic, transmitters AND receivers enjoy the GAIN derived from the introduction of a null not otherwise part of the characteristic. This is a commonplace of theory and practice. Where ever you can design or contribute to a null; then this must of necessity result in an increase in signal outside of its region. These are all commonplace observations discussed here that are observable for either Ham or SWL operations. There is NO differential offered in these observations that separate SWL from Ham activities. Such examples of small loops used for MF are proof positive how poor an antenna can be, and the RF gain knob resurrecting its pitiful efficiency. But for MWDX reception, efficiency simply isn't an important virtue. I believe I have said that at least 3 to 5 times already. Gain is cheap. What matters is the steerable nulls. An efficient *steerable* MW antenna is enormous and expensive. Who needs an efficient MW antenna? This does NOT demonstrate some illusion of superior receive antenna design; rather it is more smoke and mirrors as an argument. Inverting the argument, if you had a full sized antenna for that band, you would only need a galena crystal and cat whisker to power your hi-Z headset. For DX you would only need a $5 AF amplifier. The smaller antenna clearly needs more dollars expended to offset the debilities of the poorer efficiency. Sensitivity is the cheapest, easiest virtue to put into a receiver. Essentially all modern receivers have plenty. Indeed, the cheap ones often overload when presented with an efficient antenna: you have to spend the dollars to be able to handle the big signals! All of $20 if you have any technical capacity. Otherwise push the credit card across the display counter and spend as much as they can sell you. This argument is like driving your car into the shop to get the air changed in your tires every 100 miles. Again, front end overload is a very common complaint offered here by SWLers who are then advised in how to simply AND cheaply combat this problem. Speaking of strawmen, have you ever actually tried DXing with a crystal radio? Sure, what is so remarkable about that? Beyond this simple design, ever hear of a super-Regen receiver? You don't need to spend half a kilo-buck to get the same sensitivity and filtering is dirt cheap. How about Q-multipliers? All such topics barely spread the wallet as much as the illusion of more buttons make a better rig. I love designing and building antennas: applied physics is fun. But it's good engineering to go with the strengths of your technology. For my inverted-L's, I spend a little efficiency (4 dB or so) to get octaves of effective bandwidth, something that is perhaps of little use to hams, but is very useful to an SWL in conjunction with the frequency agility of a modern receiver. 4 dB of efficiency loss is of negligible consequence at HF and below if your receiver has a decent noise figure. As I pointed out to Yahoo, if you choose to cripple yourself, then slide on over to the shoulder and enjoy kicking up dust and rocks as you travel down the road. a 4dB loss for an inverted L (hardly a SW invention) is far too simple to remedy to make its suffering a boast of martyrdom. It is a strange argument to offer that you can't afford a $20 solution for your $500 set and $2 worth of wire. I've never seen mention of this efficiency/bandwidth tradeoff in the ham literature, You haven't looked. Either contrived, wholly fictional, or accurately represented, it is part of the stock in trade for selling antennas. In this group, I would wager its discussion consumes more bandwidth than bragging about how many QSL cards have been pasted to the wall. but it's not hard to find in the professional literature. For details of a specific calculation, see: http://anarc.org/naswa/badx/antennas/SWL_longwire.html -jpd It would do you well to note that this "professional" whom you rely upon, John Kraus, is one of the most notable Ham Radio Operators frequently acknowledged and referred to here. Do you or others have any actual differentiable discussion, or is this simply an outlet for appoligia for why it isn't worth the strain to lift a soldering iron when you can bench press a credit card? 73's Richard Clark, KB7QHC |
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#63
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Richard Clark wrote:
On Tue, 29 Jun 2004 15:34:42 -0600, John Doty wrote: You are making the assumption that that the antenna only picks up radiated modes. I am making no such assumption and all following commentary does absolutely nothing to separate the concerns of SWLers from Ham activity. Non-radiated electromagnetic modes are also troublesome, particularly common mode on the transmission line. This tends to be the way that locally generated noise from household gadgets gets into an antenna system. Consider a lamp dimmer that generates 10 mW of RFI, which rides out in common mode on the mains, finds its way to the power cord of your transceiver, rides out on the feedline to the antenna, and then couples back through differential mode to your receiver input. That's not a very efficient coupling path, so suppose it has a loss of 60 dB. You'll still get 10 nW to the receiver. This is a lot: even if it's spread over 30 MHz, it's still 10 uV in a 6 kHz channel. That's S6 on my Drake R-8, a very serious quantity of noise. Let's work with exactly that scenario you offered. S6 (Calibrated) on my Drake TR-7 is -88dBm - so close to your 10µV to be indistinguishable. My TS-430 varies from -80dBm to -73dBm. There is no calibrated S-Meter for my DX-440, but for a $200 SW set, its sensitivity is -90dBm for a full scale meter indication (about 7dB range from top to bottom). All very well and good. Now if we regard this speculation of 10mW (it is, after all, the epitome of a wild ass guess, isn't it?); then, let's reverse engineer that 10nW product from 6kHz buckets over the range of 30MHz to find 50µW which is 23dB below the original power presumably suppressed 60dB. Well, I have either pencil-whipped you, or you me, or each other - the numbers don't add up. 10 uV into 50 ohms is 2 pW, not 10 nW (E^2/R). 2 pW = -117 dBW = -87 dBm. Multiplying by 30000/6 = 5000 buckets makes 10 nW or -50 dBm. Cancel the assumed 60 dB loss and I get +10 dBm, or 10 mW. The numbers add up fine. However, if I return to the original "problem" of noise derived from household sources; then that is also something I have closely measured. Across time, frequency, antennas, and known noise sources I have found it as low as S1 for my longwire (an antenna supposedly unused by Hams) to as high as S7 (for that same longwire). My loops, dipoles and verticals hardly fell outside of this range to present any gilt-edge design. Just because you couldn't doesn't mean others can't. Look at the rest of the articles on the BADX site. Taking steps to minimize common mode coupling has worked very well for me, and many people tell me it works for them too. You might also find the articles at http://www.qsl.net/wa1ion/ interesting, especially the one entitled "Another Look at Noise Reducing Antennas". Mark's antenna designs are generally useless for transmitting, but they make superb MWDX receiving antennas. With every circuit in the house broken (operating battery power in the dark), average noise level was either S2 for a vertical, or S1 to S3 for a loop (rather upsetting the voodoo of loops being quiet and verticals being noisy). When I returned power to the house by stages, I insured every opportunity of injecting noise by setting dimmers to their worst position (about 50%). In the low bands, I suffered as much as S8 noise levels with an average of S5 when the house was full lit (also including fluorescents) and all noise sources adding to the cacophony of reception. This was for a loop antenna. On the other hand, if your transmitter puts out 1 kW, 60 dB of loss means it only delivers 1 mW of RF to the dimmer, an amount unlikely to interfere with its operation. Reciprocity does not mean *consequences* are symmetrical. This effect of reciprocity has been reported so frequently in this group so as to negate your premise. We have many queries for how to solve this problem. To this point, you have not offered any particularly receive dominated issue that is not already a heavily trafficked topic with transmission antennas. A deep, steerable null can be extremely useful for reception, but its not generally useful for transmission. This really goes off the deep edge. Barring loss introduced for the sake of jimmying the logic, transmitters AND receivers enjoy the GAIN derived from the introduction of a null not otherwise part of the characteristic. This is a commonplace of theory and practice. Where ever you can design or contribute to a null; then this must of necessity result in an increase in signal outside of its region. These are all commonplace observations discussed here that are observable for either Ham or SWL operations. There is NO differential offered in these observations that separate SWL from Ham activities. Certainly there is. A narrow null takes little power from the pattern: you get little gain by putting that in a broad lobe. For example, an elementary dipole has, theoretically, infinitely deep nulls yet it only has about 2 dBi gain. Now consider a phased array: small phasing errors have little effect on the gain, but they can have a large effect on the null depth. When transmitting, you're generally interested in putting the power in the right place, but when receiving you're often more interested in avoiding picking up power from the wrong place. These considerations are only weakly related. Such examples of small loops used for MF are proof positive how poor an antenna can be, and the RF gain knob resurrecting its pitiful efficiency. But for MWDX reception, efficiency simply isn't an important virtue. I believe I have said that at least 3 to 5 times already. Gain is cheap. What matters is the steerable nulls. An efficient *steerable* MW antenna is enormous and expensive. Who needs an efficient MW antenna? People who transmit, of course! Speaking of strawmen, have you ever actually tried DXing with a crystal radio? Sure, what is so remarkable about that? Beyond this simple design, ever hear of a super-Regen receiver? You don't need to spend half a kilo-buck to get the same sensitivity and filtering is dirt cheap. Sure. Used them. Selectivity is *lousy*. For SW, I've gotten better results with a plain regen. Still, my Drake R-8 is better for DX, my Sony ICF-SW100 travels easy, and my Stromberg-Carlson 58-T sounds wonderful, so I haven't played with a regen in quite a while. How about Q-multipliers? All such topics barely spread the wallet as much as the illusion of more buttons make a better rig. I have a Heathkit Q-multiplier I built in 1965. It's pretty good at nulling out unwanted carriers, but in peak mode the shape factor of a single resonance is pretty poor. At the moment I don't have a working receiver it's really suited to, but I have a Halli S-40 one of my in-laws gave me, and one of these days I'll find the time to repair it (it's in really poor shape). The S-40 could probably use a Q-multiplier once I've got it in working order. I love designing and building antennas: applied physics is fun. But it's good engineering to go with the strengths of your technology. For my inverted-L's, I spend a little efficiency (4 dB or so) to get octaves of effective bandwidth, something that is perhaps of little use to hams, but is very useful to an SWL in conjunction with the frequency agility of a modern receiver. 4 dB of efficiency loss is of negligible consequence at HF and below if your receiver has a decent noise figure. As I pointed out to Yahoo, if you choose to cripple yourself, then slide on over to the shoulder and enjoy kicking up dust and rocks as you travel down the road. a 4dB loss for an inverted L (hardly a SW invention) is far too simple to remedy to make its suffering a boast of martyrdom. It is a strange argument to offer that you can't afford a $20 solution for your $500 set and $2 worth of wire. How would you undo that 4 dB loss without loss of bandwidth? I'm hardly boasting of martyrdom anyway: a broadband inverted L is a fine general purpose receiving antenna. I've never seen mention of this efficiency/bandwidth tradeoff in the ham literature, You haven't looked. Either contrived, wholly fictional, or accurately represented, it is part of the stock in trade for selling antennas. In this group, I would wager its discussion consumes more bandwidth than bragging about how many QSL cards have been pasted to the wall. Examples? but it's not hard to find in the professional literature. For details of a specific calculation, see: http://anarc.org/naswa/badx/antennas/SWL_longwire.html -jpd It would do you well to note that this "professional" whom you rely upon, John Kraus, is one of the most notable Ham Radio Operators frequently acknowledged and referred to here. He knew a great deal about the full range of antenna designs and applications, not just ham radio. And he sure knew his physics. Do you or others have any actual differentiable discussion, or is this simply an outlet for appoligia for why it isn't worth the strain to lift a soldering iron when you can bench press a credit card? When a soldering iron is the best tool to get the job done, I lift a soldering iron. The Stromberg-Carlson was a "bare chassis" restoration: most of the resistors were 50% off value, the paper capacitors were leaking, the electrolytics were dry, and one of the RF coils was open (disassembling and reassembling the coil turret was a real pain). Still, it was worth the work to get that wonderful sound. The NASA certified techs I work with professionally tell me I'm pretty good with a soldering iron, considering I'm a physicist. From them, that's high praise :-) -jpd |
#64
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On Tue, 29 Jun 2004 22:41:44 -0600, John Doty
wrote: Consider a lamp dimmer that generates 10 mW of RFI, which rides out in common mode on the mains, finds its way to the power cord of your transceiver, rides out on the feedline to the antenna, and then couples back through differential mode to your receiver input. That's not a very efficient coupling path, so suppose it has a loss of 60 dB. You'll still get 10 nW to the receiver. This is a lot: even if it's spread over 30 MHz, it's still 10 uV in a 6 kHz channel. That's S6 on my Drake R-8, a very serious quantity of noise. 10 uV into 50 ohms is 2 pW, not 10 nW (E^2/R). 2 pW = -117 dBW = -87 dBm. Multiplying by 30000/6 = 5000 buckets makes 10 nW or -50 dBm. Cancel the assumed 60 dB loss and I get +10 dBm, or 10 mW. The numbers add up fine. As I said, one of the two of us was being pencil-whipped. This does nothing to change the fact that the original term has no basis in fact. It could as easily be laid to the effects of a nuclear EMP 2000 miles away. There will always be something to blame, and that is NOT a solution nor is it differentiable between Ham and SWL antennas. However, if I return to the original "problem" of noise derived from household sources; then that is also something I have closely measured. Across time, frequency, antennas, and known noise sources I have found it as low as S1 for my longwire (an antenna supposedly unused by Hams) to as high as S7 (for that same longwire). My loops, dipoles and verticals hardly fell outside of this range to present any gilt-edge design. Just because you couldn't doesn't mean others can't. Can't WHAT? The numbers I offer are shown of direct experience correlatable to real world conditions and conform to 3 Sigma of SWL conditions. Being correlatable they were also resolved and reduced to that same unpowered baseline without forcing me off the grid into darkness. My station sits with a noise flicker based upon atmospherics and radiation borne products, not the usual household pollution that I both describe above and eliminated through techniques described as commonplaces in this group. There are no magic antennas and no magic rituals equal to these commonplace practices that are offered here. Look at the rest of the articles on the BADX site. Taking steps to minimize common mode coupling has worked very well for me, and many people tell me it works for them too. This material is NOT novel by any stretch of the imagination. However, it is hardly fully encompassing and falls short of the entire treatment. The notion that a spike in the ground solves common mode reveals a very limited experience in the matter, and simply devolves to the misty eyed sentimentality of "it works for me, so there is no better way for you." Testimonial is a poor substitute for how and why - especially when the suggested solution inevitably fails for someone. The common response in that situation is to sneer them away as somehow deserving their predicament - again, with no one knowing the basis of the problem, they can hardly help but repeat the same nostrum now shown to fail somewhere (an anathema in religion). You might also find the articles at http://www.qsl.net/wa1ion/ These suggestions grow more bizarre by the posting where the correspondent offers that SWLers ignore Amateur advice as poor quality (a remark from a noted Yahoo), and then offer proof of their own beguiling theories through quotes from - Amateur references. interesting, especially the one entitled "Another Look at Noise Reducing Antennas". Mark's antenna designs are generally useless for transmitting, but they make superb MWDX receiving antennas. I cannot see how injecting the notion of uselessness is a boon for an argument upon a physicist who can understand the notion of symmetry or what is called in this field of study, reciprocity. If it is useless as a transmit antenna, is it useless as a receive antenna? Of course not, as such the injection of this comment serves no purpose other than rhetorical noise. The problem with such a degraded S/N in the correspondence of ideas is that the larger body of uninitiated SWLers come to the conclusion that this "uselessness" is a positive boon to be sought in every antenna design. Our eminent Yahoo wears this badge of anti-intellectualism as a patronizing populist. This discussion also reveals a poverty of alternative designs that have equal or superior merits, even if devoid of transmitting application. Those designs are widely discussed here and their merits are weighed not in prejudicial terms but rather in technical comparisons and their correlation to application. That is to say, anyone can make an informed decision on the basis of these evaluations offered here where we typical discard "testimonials" to the rubbish heap. A narrow null takes little power from the pattern: you get little gain by putting that in a broad lobe. For example, an elementary dipole has, theoretically, infinitely deep nulls yet it only has about 2 dBi gain. Now consider a phased array: small phasing errors have little effect on the gain, but they can have a large effect on the null depth. Again, this exposes a lack of experience in the matter. Those nulls are balanced against the theoretical radiator called an isotropic source. This is the i of the 2dBi (and in fact is actual;y higher than that value). Worse yet, this lack of experience further pollutes the uninitiated SWLer's notion of this balance of ledger because no one on this earth is ever going to experience that 2dB gain (nor the supposed sharp nulls) - and simply due to earth being nearby (an irreconcilable fact of life that extends out beyond 6 Sigma for the population of listeners). A simple dipole one quarterwave above earth exhibits an additional 3dB gain above and beyond your cited number. This goes to show how your casually abandoned 4dB for an inverted L is so simply recovered - through real comparisons rather than xeroxed theories. The level of discussion is so unbalanced with myth, superstition and hearsay that the casual SWLer seeking advice faces the problem of sorting out the **** from the shinola. If I were to hike the dipole a little more, it shows 8dB gain after allowing a real world loss of 1dB. To tell that same casual SWLer 4dB is no great loss gives a spread of 10dB. The consequence of this challenging this poor coverage of intellectual offering is that the casual SWLer having the facts known, can in fact choose to build a less optimal antenna, one that suits his real world limitations, and enjoy a design that does not simply discard signal with abandon. Alternatively, a simpler receiver can perform with an excellent antenna as well as a box full of expensive knobs can with an air cooled resistor. When transmitting, you're generally interested in putting the power in the right place, but when receiving you're often more interested in avoiding picking up power from the wrong place. These considerations are only weakly related. This has been spoken too, the limitation is found in the signal and noise being aligned along the same meridian. If there is any weak relation it is found in the chance of distribution. The laws of reciprocity are not violated by chance, and both Ham operator and SWLer suffer the same odds. There is NOTHING separable here. Who needs an efficient MW antenna? People who transmit, of course! And SWLers are not transmitting are they? Really, these specious arguments do not advance any notion of this being separate issues. There is nothing in the circularity of logic that demands poorer transmit antenna designs are better receive antenna designs. Nearly every beneficial description from your sources cited above lie outside of the antenna and reside in the coupling or in the receiver. Such commonplaces are not novel; they are not unique and special knowledge; and they are certainly not universally applicable. How would you undo that 4 dB loss without loss of bandwidth? That has been responded to above. Loss of bandwidth is a chimera suited for argument rather than operation. To say it is frequency agile is the crowning claim for someone who is fain to turn a switch and set a capacitor in 5 seconds. This isn't rocket surgery, children learn such techniques within minutes of explanation and faithfully demonstrate far less loss consistently for ever after. Further, the usage of a tuner solves many other ills related to noise and front end overload. The argument of the 9:1 transformer to ease operation comes at the expense of simple cheap solutions - to no great benefit, and further, to 4 dB additional loss as you describe. What boon is to be found in that combination? I find it laughable that one web site offered claims that a resonant system is bad for your reception. What a crock! This has all the logic of buying square wheels to increase your gas mileage. I'm hardly boasting of martyrdom anyway: a broadband inverted L is a fine general purpose receiving antenna. And what distinguishes it as a poor transmitting antenna? The inclusion of the engineering decoration of the 9:1 transformer? This logic is destroyed by a conventional tube transmitter (the original application suited to this design). Once again, every issue in relation to even this point is discussed as a commonplace in this group with simple and cheap solutions that perform without the concurrent 4dB loss. Such a cavalier attitude of discarding signal is evidence of purchasing power, not technical competence. I've never seen mention of this efficiency/bandwidth tradeoff in the ham literature, You haven't looked. Either contrived, wholly fictional, or accurately represented, it is part of the stock in trade for selling antennas. In this group, I would wager its discussion consumes more bandwidth than bragging about how many QSL cards have been pasted to the wall. Examples? As I offered, you need to look rather than claim. They are so common that if they escape your attention, no work on my part is going to satisfy you. So, the question remains: Do you or others have any actual differentiable discussion, or is this simply an outlet for appoligia for why it isn't worth the strain to lift a soldering iron when you can bench press a credit card? 73's Richard Clark, KB7QHC |
#65
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"Mark1" wrote in message
... pse remove the nl newsgroup from this discussion. Loop niet zo te zeuren Mark1, deze draad is gestart door een Nederlander (Kees) en ge-crosspost naar twee engelse groepen. Dus dat deze heren hier steeds weer terugkomen is gewoon deel van de originele discussie. Meindert |
#66
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Meindert Sprang bracht volgend idée uit :
"Mark1" wrote in message ... pse remove the nl newsgroup from this discussion. Loop niet zo te zeuren Mark1, deze draad is gestart door een Nederlander (Kees) en ge-crosspost naar twee engelse groepen. Dus dat deze heren hier steeds weer terugkomen is gewoon deel van de originele discussie. Meindert Wat een onzin Meindert, ik vraag gewoon of ze deze nieuwsgroep eruit willen halen, het is en blijft een Nederlandse nieuwsgroep. De 'draad' is gestart door Kees met reclame maken voor zijn website met daarop zijn eigen gebouwde antenne, daar staat netjes bij dat hij wel vragen wilt beantwoorden, nou prima maar dan wel op zijn e-mail adres graag. |
#67
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John Doty wrote:
Consider a lamp dimmer that generates 10 mW of RFI, which rides out in common mode on the mains, finds its way to the power cord of your transceiver, rides out on the feedline to the antenna, and then couples back through differential mode to your receiver input. That's not a very efficient coupling path, so suppose it has a loss of 60 dB. You'll still get 10 nW to the receiver. This is a lot: even if it's spread over 30 MHz, it's still 10 uV in a 6 kHz channel. That's S6 on my Drake R-8, a very serious quantity of noise. What is the actual coupling process between common and differential mode at the far (antenna) end of the coax? -----= Posted via Newsfeeds.Com, Uncensored Usenet News =----- http://www.newsfeeds.com - The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World! -----== Over 100,000 Newsgroups - 19 Different Servers! =----- |
#68
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RC,
The initial poster cross-posted the original Post to three NewsGroups. 1. rec.radio.shortwave 2. rec.radio.amateur.antenna 3. nl.radio.amateur Then to just two: 1. rec.radio.shortwave 2. rec.radio.amateur.antenna This reply is ONLY to: Rec.Radio.Shortwave {RRS} I can see by your "WPE" Call-Sign that at one time you were a SWL'er. But you have gone way beyond that now and are a Licensed Amateur Radio Operator. I concede that you have far superior technical expertise then myself in the area of antennas and more. I simply remain a SWL'er I will repeat part of my prior post: "Spoken (written) like a True Amateur, and precisely why most SWLs ignore what is written in reply to SWL 'type' Antennas questions by HAMs." As an Amateur 'you' talk down to me as a SWL and use your knowledge and expertise to Attack and attempt to humble me as a SWL. Everything that you have said may be true. But IMHO it is way beyond what a SWL needs to know to simply build a SWL Antenna to meet their listening needs with a 'portable' SW Radio or may be a table top General Coverage Receiver. An Antenna that will fit the 'limits' of their Available Space and other building and property restrictions. A SWL Antenna that will make their SWL'ing more interesting and enjoyable. RC - What you have written and the tone that you take would simply turn most new SWL'ers off. iane ~ RHF .. .. = = = Richard Clark wrote in message = = = . .. On 29 Jun 2004 11:30:01 -0700, (RHF) wrote: RC (KB7QHC), Spoken (written) like a True Amateur, and precicly why most SWLs ignore what is written in reply to SWL 'type' Antennas questions by HAMs. Strange logic to offer that a listener comes here to post a query they will ignore in anticipation. Rather self serving argument isn't it? Most SWLs work to get the best signal (cleanest signal and lowest noise) they can to be able to listen to what they what to hear. There is nothing in this statement that distinguishes amateur from listener. Further, it contains absolutely no technical material to support any sense of this exclusivity of concern. To respond in kind, you don't even rise to amateur status. But there is a real difference between the radio receiving focus of a SWL'er and a HAM. I simply offered my opinion and nothing more; but feel free to use all the Technical Material you feel necessary to support your position. I have never claimed 'amateur' "Status"; and I did not think that on Rec.Radio.Shortwave a License was required. .. .. The HAM would hardly ever consider a 'random' wire Antenna; Now this is a statement that is clearly in error. The archives will attest to this. This may be a matter of perception and degree. .. .. but to the SWL'er the "Random" Wire Antenna 'concept' is a natural to fill their available space. Power handling, gain and antenna design characteristics are the focus of the HAM. As they are no more or less for a listener. If you find some other motivation, it is strictly your own prejudice. ? motivation ? prejudice ? .. .. As far as the AM/MW Loop Antenna's are concerned. For the AM/MW DX'er these Antenna's perform the best for their size and the available space that the average Broadcast Listener (BCL) has for these Medium Wave Band. The SWL'er wants to hear any Radio Station out there from any direction. Perhaps you should attend this board more often to learn the fundamentals. There is no impediment to hearing any Radio Station out there from any direction with simple verticals. SW sets come with them you know. Yes many 'portable' SW Radio have small Whip Antennas built-in to the radios. But to the SWL'er attempting to use an External Antenna to Hear-More. A Vertical Antenna that is subject to more RFI/EMF would not be my first suggestion. A Horizontal Random Wire or Inverted "L" Antenna using Low Noise design concepts would be what I would recommend. Here are Three Links to give you an idea of what I am talking about: http://www.anarc.org/naswa/badx/ante...e_antenna.html http://www.anarc.org/naswa/badx/ante..._longwire.html http://www.anarc.org/naswa/badx/antennas/grounding.html .. .. The 'focus' of the SWL'er is simpy different then the Amateur; and the majority of SWL'ers are Program Listeners who seldom listen to the HAM Bands. So why are you posting to an amateur group? Why an antenna group? You would be better served through your self-imposed limitations by staying out of the fast lane. The initial poster cross-posted the original Post to three NewsGroups. 1. rec.radio.shortwave 2. rec.radio.amateur.antenna 3. nl.radio.amateur Then to just two: 1. rec.radio.shortwave 2. rec.radio.amateur.antenna This reply is ONLY to: Rec.Radio.Shortwave {RRS} I have never claimed 'amateur' "Status"; and I did not think that on Rec.Radio.Shortwave a License was required. .. .. 73's Richard Clark, KB7QHC, WPE0EPH p.s. if the WPE0EPH is unknown to you, it denotes my having been a Shortwave listener for 40 years and registered with the Popular Electronics DX club (as well as a sack full of others from around the world). "Were You a WPE ?" http://www.qsl.net/wb1gfh/swl.html http://www.w8pgw.org/node/view/386 http://www181.pair.com/otsw/WPE.html WDX Monitor Services P.O. Box 9 Collingswood, NJ 08108 http://kc5jk.tripod.com/sitebuilderc...files/wdx.html Short Wave Listening group issues call signs and awards http://ej.typepad.com/k8zrh/2003/10/...wave_list.html Short Wave Amateur Radio Listening (SWARL) COMMENTARY: SWL CALL SIGNS / DYING HOBBY http://www.worldofradio.com/dxld3169.txt DX LISTENING DIGEST 3-169, September 21, 2003 Edited by Glenn Hauser .. |
#69
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starman wrote:
John Doty wrote: Consider a lamp dimmer that generates 10 mW of RFI, which rides out in common mode on the mains, finds its way to the power cord of your transceiver, rides out on the feedline to the antenna, and then couples back through differential mode to your receiver input. That's not a very efficient coupling path, so suppose it has a loss of 60 dB. You'll still get 10 nW to the receiver. This is a lot: even if it's spread over 30 MHz, it's still 10 uV in a 6 kHz channel. That's S6 on my Drake R-8, a very serious quantity of noise. What is the actual coupling process between common and differential mode at the far (antenna) end of the coax? Consider first an open circuited coax cable hanging in mid air. In coax, the common mode is carried only on the shield, while the differential mode is carried by opposing currents on the shield and center conductor. Since the shield is open circuited, the sum of the common mode and differential mode currents on the shield must be zero at the end. But the differential mode current must also be zero, since the center conductor is open circuited. We therefore conclude that the common mode current must also be zero at this point: the shield current cannot be balanced by driving a differential mode current. Now attach a wire to the center conductor. Now a current can flow out from the center conductor to the wire, so the common mode shield current can be balanced by a differential mode shield current: the common mode energy thus drives a differential mode current. The misnamed "magnetic longwire balun" doesn't help here, since it can't suppress this coupling without also suppressing the coupling of the antenna to the differential mode: it has no way of distinguishing the current from energy coming down the wire from the current due to energy coming up the coax. If you connect the shield to an infinite, perfectly conducting ground plane, all of the common mode current flows that way. This is why a ground stake at the feedpoint helps (although in real life it's not perfect). With a balanced antenna things are generally better, but more complicated: without a balun, the common mode on the coax will excite a combination of common and differential modes on the antenna. A balun can help, but practical baluns are not ideal devices. Furthermore, the common mode on the coax can couple electrostatically or magnetically to nearby conductors like the antenna. Careful orientation of the line with respect to a balanced antenna can minimize this, but it's difficult to avoid some coupling in practice. Given that the methods for decoupling the common mode from the differential mode at the antenna are imperfect, it's often a good idea to try to keep the common mode energy away from the antenna in the first place. -jpd |
#70
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Nou weet ik wat ze in plaats van dat Morse hadden moeten doen: Engels.
73 Hans, PA0H "Mark1" wrote in message ... Meindert Sprang bracht volgend idée uit : "Mark1" wrote in message ... pse remove the nl newsgroup from this discussion. Loop niet zo te zeuren Mark1, deze draad is gestart door een Nederlander (Kees) en ge-crosspost naar twee engelse groepen. Dus dat deze heren hier steeds weer terugkomen is gewoon deel van de originele discussie. Meindert Wat een onzin Meindert, ik vraag gewoon of ze deze nieuwsgroep eruit willen halen, het is en blijft een Nederlandse nieuwsgroep. De 'draad' is gestart door Kees met reclame maken voor zijn website met daarop zijn eigen gebouwde antenne, daar staat netjes bij dat hij wel vragen wilt beantwoorden, nou prima maar dan wel op zijn e-mail adres graag. |
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