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Re: KX3 ATU

Posted by David Gilbert on Sep 19, 2012; 8:10am
URL: http://elecraft.85.s1.nabble.com/KX3-ATU-tp7495809p7562969.html


That's pretty much picking nits, in my opinion.  It doesn't really
matter whether you physically locate needed complex reactance at the
antenna or present it to the antenna via the transmission line physics
of a feedline ... the net result that exists at the antenna is exactly
the same (neglecting transmission line losses, of course) in either
case.  The only relevant distinction I can see is that "tuning" more
accurately refers to bringing something to resonance rather than also
transforming it to a different load impedance, but that falls into the
category of useless semantics for me and I can give you all sorts of
examples where it would be next to impossible to distinguish
electrically where an antenna ends.  The dividing line between an
antenna and the rest of the system is not at all as definitive as you
suggest, and pretending it is seems more likely to give a false
impression of how things really work than not.

73,
Dave   AB7E



On 9/18/2012 11:52 PM, Adrian wrote:

> Matt, Of course I don't question Don's technical stature, however "tuning
> the antenna" is a poor choice of explanation, and can give a false
> impression to those weak on the subject. Adding 'system' would have been a
> good move as you indicate. We tune where we measure.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Matt Maguire [mailto:[hidden email]]
> Sent: Wednesday, 19 September 2012 3:35 PM
> To: vk4tux
> Cc: [hidden email]
> Subject: Re: [Elecraft] KX3 ATU
>
>
> On 19/09/2012, at 2:48 PM, vk4tux <[hidden email]> wrote:
>
>> Don, When you say "The ATU will tune the antenna to an acceptable
>> SWR", you are contradicting yourself, because as you rightly said the
>> tuner does not change the antenna feedpoint swr.
> It is clear from the context that Don meant the ATU will tune (ie. match)
> the antenna *system* to the radio, where the antenna system consists of the
> ATU, antenna and connecting feedline considered as a single unit. This of
> course does not mean that the VSWR is 1:1 everywhere within that system.
>
> The theory predicts that the measures VSWR will be constant along a
> *lossless* feedline. As you point out, practical feedlines do have losses.
> This will include I^2.R copper losses, but there can be losses from other
> sources as well, such as dielectric losses. Often such losses will be
> modelled as some sort of equivalent series resistance.
>
> 73, Matt VK2ACL=
>
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