CONTROVERSY BEGINS--- WITH JERRY For the amateur in radio the W2DU ferrite
SEVICK, W2FMI CONCERNING BALUNS bead over coax is a good balun (Figure) --- it
exhibits slightly lower loss (Figure).
In 1991 QST published an article I wrote entitled
“Transforming the Balun”. The QST Technical
Editor added the byline:
Whatever type of balun is used a current balun should If we measure Vout/Iout, measured at the output
be used, and the balun should be on the input (tuned) terminals of a properly adjusted PA, tuned for
side of ther ASTU --- see my QST article in the maximum design power transfer, which in the practical
October 2004 issue of QST. case is an antenna system, we can infer an impedance
Zout = Vout/Iout, which is equal to the load
A CONTINUING SAGA impedance. But to measure Zout we have, as my long
time colleague Jim Wait, now deceased, told me, we
But the most controversial topic, I have folders and have to dissipate power. In other words operate the
folders full of correspondence, arose from the article by power amplifier into a 50 ohm resistive load. To
Warren Bruene, W5OLY entitled “RF Power measure Zout change the load a little bit, 5-10 percent,
Amplifier and the Conjugate Match”, published in and observe the change in Vout and Iout (rms values).
QST November 1991 issue. Warren wanted to discredit We have to make a small change in the dissipative load
Walter Maxwell, W2DU’s book “Reflections- resistance, because we do not want to change the
Transmission Lines and Antennas”, published by the operating characteristics of the PA tube(s).
ARRL in 1990.
This means we have to accurately measure very small
Bruene showed measurements (a curious set of changes in current and voltage. I show in the next
measurements) that in his view showed that the output Figure a comparison between what we (Walter
source impedance (referred to by him to be the source Maxwell) measured compared with the controversial
resistance) of a tuned RF power amplifier was 5-times curve presently by Bruene.
the load impedance. This of course is wrong, but
Bruene has stuck to his guns to the present date. He
still thinks Walt Maxwell and I are wrong!!
comparable to a mobile whip --- for example a 1.7 m
diameter loop at 1.8 MHz and at 3.75 MHz, and that
traditional formula for radiation resistance, developed
about 60 years ago was correct.
COMPACT LOOPS Mike seems to have gone completely bananas, but since
he writes under the title of a Professor in the School of
I have operations used, evaluated by experimental Electronics and Physical Sciences, University of
measurement and by simulation (numerical modelling) Surrey, I suppose there are some who believe that he
and written on small compact transmitting loops, knows what he is talking about??
dating back to the mid-eighties --- in the amateur
literature let me refer to my November 1993 QST He claims that his inferred intrinsic efficiencies, 80-90
article “An Up-date on Compact Transmitting Loops”. percent, inferred not from measured field strengths but
from Q-factor based on measured VSWR, to be
I considered that the performance of such antennas confirmed by his proposed extensions of EM theory ---
(perimeter/wavelength as small as 0.03 to 0.06) was Maxwell’s EM theory is not quite right, according to
about what one would expect, a few percent, Underhill,
and the Somerfeld-Norton ground wave propagation
theory needs revision. He also disagrees with the Chu-
Wheeler Q criterion. And field strength measurements
over ground need to re-evaluated.
Experimental model.
Belrose, J.S., "Scale Modelling and Full Scale Measurement Belrose, J.S., “Electrically Small Transmitting Loops”, IEEE
Techniques with particular reference to antennas in their AP-S Symposium Digest, Washington, 3-8 July 2005.
operational environments", in AGARD Lecture Series No.
131, The Performance of Antennas in their Operational
Environment, October, 1983. Available: NTIS Access No.
N84-12367.
Belrose, J.S., G.M. Royer and L.E. Petrie, “HF Wire Antenna
over Real Ground: Computer Simulation and Measurement”,