Hot Antennas

[Rob Hummel]

>>That's right. For every connector pair, you lose 35 watts.
>---------------------------------------------
>This can't be true.  If it were, every connector in my shack would be
>too hot to touch when I'm running the legal limit.  In reality, even
>on 10 meters running RTTY at 1500 watts, the UHF-type connectors are
>barely warm after 4-5 minutes of transmitting.  I would estimate the
>loss in each is perhaps one watt at the most, probably less than that.
>Where did you get your figure of .05 dB?  And at what frequency?

Well, the 0.05 dB has always been the rule of thumb. But you're right that
perhaps I was relying on my previous experience in the microwave region for
this rule of thumb.

But, why speculate when you can investigate? Enough ill-informed guessing
goes on in ham radio as it is. I know someone out there has access to an HP
Sweeper and can run this test from 3 to 30 MHz. I used this setup when I
tuned up my low-pass filters -- took 5 minutes. Unfortunately, I don't have
access to this equipment anymore.
 Rob Hummel (WS1A) <rhummel@monad.net>