[TenTec] OT SWR VS Power Loss

Alfred Lorona w6wqc at dslextreme.com
Tue Jul 8 01:53:01 EDT 2008


Al wrote:

'snip'

> is all that is required, ANY wire can be called resonant and there is
> nothing to distinguish such wires from a halfwave wire.

When I wrote 'any wire' I assumed that, given  the context of the
discussion, everyone would know that I meant any length wire that had it's 
reactance cancelled
leaving the wire length intact. I hope this clears up that point.

I wish to add that antenna Q has nothing to do with the current in it. It
only affects the bandwidth. Current is established by ohms law that states I
= sq rt of the quantity P/R. The only way to increase the current is to
increase the power fed to the antenna. An antenna with an impedance of 50
ohms and 100 watts fed to it has  a current of 1.414 amps regardless of the
Q. Alternately, you can increase the current with the same 100 watts by 
making the wire shorter
because the impedance will be lower than 50 ohms! Will this shortened 
antenna be a better antenna because it has more current? No.

73, AL



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