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Re: [Amps] High SWR

To: "amps@contesting.com" <amps@contesting.com>
Subject: Re: [Amps] High SWR
From: "Jim Brown" <jim@audiosystemsgroup.com>
Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2009 09:54:38 -0700
List-post: <amps@contesting.com">mailto:amps@contesting.com>
On Thu, 23 Apr 2009 12:26:14 -0400, Gary Schafer wrote:

>If the line is well balanced it will not radiate
>either forward or reflected power that may be on it. 

Correct. BUT -- an important clarification about balance. It is 
not the LINE that determines balance, it is what is connected to 
the line -- the ANTENNA and the matching network. Virtually all 
ham antennas are unbalanced by surroundings, even when fed by 2-
wire line. 

By the principle of superposition, transmission line current can 
be analyzed as differential mode current and common mode current. 
The current due to unbalance is common mode current. Differential 
mode current does NOT radiate. Common mode current DOES radiate. 

Common mode current can be killed on coaxial line by a serious 
common mode choke. The "coil of coax" and the traditional "string 
of beads" so-called "current balun" do this in a small way (that 
is, they reduce the common mode current a bit. The big ferrite 
coaxial chokes I've designed do it a lot better -- that is, they 
reduce it a lot more. A lot less "RF in the shack," a lot less RX 
noise picked up on the line. 

2-wire line is far more susceptible to RF in the shack and noise 
pickup on the line ONLY because there's no practical way to choke 
it to kill the common mode current. If there's no common mode 
current on 2-wire line, it won't radiate any more than coax. 

73,

Jim Brown K9YC


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