Towertalk
[Top] [All Lists]

[TowerTalk] Rising VSWR

To: <towertalk@contesting.com>
Subject: [TowerTalk] Rising VSWR
From: ccc@space.mit.edu (Chuck Counselman)
Date: Tue Jan 28 14:58:07 2003
At 10:31 AM -0500 1/28/03, Barry W2UP wrote:
>At one time, I had a Comet wattmeter rated for 2 KW, and when
>operting RTTY, after about 15 seconds keydown at 1 KW, the needle
>started dropping off. Thought my amp was losing power until I tried
>another wattmeter.

I'm having difficulty thinking of fields of human endeavor outside 
ham radio, where actual product performance is more substantially and 
consistently worse than advertised.

So far I've been able to think of only two: (1) the quack medicines 
or herbal remedies or whatever they're called, that I hear advertised 
on the radio -- you know, the stuff that'll restore your memory, your 
eyesight, your virility,....; and (2) one that I won't mention for 
fear of starting a flame war and being banned from this excellent 
list.

QST very sanctimoniously proclaims that they won't allow antenna 
advertising that includes gain figures; yet every month QST carries 
ads for so-called "legal limit" and "high power" antenna tuners that 
-- ARRL's own lab testing reveals -- dissipate 30 to 40 percent of 
the applied RF power if the antenna is a G5RV driven at 3.5 MHz.

-Chuck, W1HIS




<Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread>