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Re: [Amps] Measuring RF Power

To: garyschafer@comcast.net
Subject: Re: [Amps] Measuring RF Power
From: David Kirkby <david.kirkby@onetel.net>
Date: Sun, 27 Mar 2005 00:04:59 +0000
List-post: <mailto:amps@contesting.com>
Gary Schafer wrote:

>Since there seems to still be some confusion on the subject here is a 
>nice article written by Roy Lewallen W7EL, the author of eznec software.
>
>He explains "RMS" power in layman's terms. A very good read.
>http://www.eznec.com/Amateur/RMS_Power.pdf
>
>73
>Gary  K4FMX
>  
>

I must agree with your Gary, that is well written, in a way that is 
pretty easy for anyone with a very modest knowledge  to understand. You 
don't need calculus knowledge as you do to fully understand my explanation

http://www.g8wrb.org/useful-stuff/rmspower.html

although hopefully the graphs I drew, showing the instantaneous power 
are usable by anyone.

The article by Roy Lewallen W7EL, shows the product of RMS current and 
RMS voltage is indeed mean power, and that this is different from RMS 
power. This is done with a 50% duty cycle square wave, which make it 
easier to do.

Interestingly the RMS power for his square waves is sqrt(2)=1.414 x the 
average power, whereas I have shown it is sqrt(3/2)=1.225 x higher for 
sine waves.

One thing can cheer hams up, is that their 1 kW (average power) linears 
can now produce in excess of 1200 W RMS.  However, as the author of that 
article above says
*
"In fact, the RMS value of power does not represent anything useful". *

so perhaps they should not get too excited about the fact their linears 
are now producing 22.5% more power.

I doubt Rich is convinced, but hopefully some others will have learnt 
something.

I have learnt something from all this, as up until a couple of days ago 
I'd not even thought about RMS power, although one soon realises it is 
not worth worrying about anyway.

The confusion reminds me of the Nyquist Sampling Theorem. 99% of 
professional engineers think you have to sample a signal at 2 or more 
times the highest frequency component to recover it without aliasing. 
That is not true, but many engineers think it is true, and many books 
say it is true.

-- 
Dr. David Kirkby, 
G8WRB

Please check out http://www.g8wrb.org/ 
of if you live in Essex http://www.southminster-branch-line.org.uk/



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