[AMPS] PEP philosophy

[Paul and Abbi Elliott]

G3SEK wrote

<There's no such thing as "peak power" because the power must be averaged
<over the whole RF cycle. You can't go peak-pickin' within the cycle.

I believe, trying to say it in words, that PEP is the average power of a CW
wave having the same peak voltage as the peak voltage of the SSB signal at
its maximum value of power output.

Every since I got on ssb back in the 1950's, PEP has been a misunderstood
and hotly debated concept among hams--wouldn't think that is true in the
engineering world.      

As a practical matter it has been my understanding one could get a correct
measure of PEP by the following procedure:

Measure the peak instaneous voltage, which will be at the peak of the of
the envelop (with a scope), of a ssb signal from a transmitter loaded into
a good dummy load (SWR 1:1).  Switch the transmitter to CW, hold the key
down, and adjust the output until the peak voltage shown on the scope is
equal to that of the first step.  Read the power on an accurate power
meter--you have your PEP value.  The power meter, will, in effect, average
the instaneous power over one cycle.  If my understanding is wrong, I am
standing by for corrections.

73

Paul W5DM

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