[AMPS] Peak Power Meters - some more thoughts

[Peter Chadwick]

Tom says;

>Then you should have trashed them, regardless of price. 

The reading is dependent on the sensor and the modulation. If it was a
bolometer or thermocouple or thermistor, it would give a different reading
to a diode.

>Maybe what has confused you is the power sum of two tones is 
>NOT twice the original tone. 

Strictly, it's the PEP sum of two tones that is not twice the the power of
each tone. The RMS power (i.e. power turned into heat) is another matter,
because of conservation of energy. The two are very different. When you go
to more tones, then it gets interesting. With 10 tones, the PEP that you get
happens rarely, and an amp with lots of carriers can actually be pushed to
what should be a higher than rated PEP because the peaks occur so rarely all
together that the resultant IMD power averaged over the measuring period is
low - although the IMD PEP is what you'd expect. This is found in cellular
radio.


73

Peter G3RZP



--
FAQ on WWW:               http://www.contesting.com/ampfaq.html
Submissions:              amps@contesting.com
Administrative requests:  amps-REQUEST@contesting.com
Problems:                 owner-amps@contesting.com
Search:                   http://www.contesting.com/km9p/search.htm