Comment on Intuitive explanation for conductor diameter v. electrical wavelength?
fullsquare@awful.systems 1 week ago
openhamprep explanation is wrong
When you consider a segment of wire, it has some inductance and capacitance in that small segment, and the wider it is, the lower inductance and higher capacitance are. In other words, both X_L and X_C go down as diameter increases. Electric field lines within antenna are mostly perpendicular to wire everywhere except on ends, where they spread in all directions, which means that there’s some residual capacitance there that needs to be charged each cycle. This is called end effect and the wider wire is, the more of it you get. In fact, the same aspect ratio (length/diameter) gets you the same end effect ratio each time, and it’s usually in range of 0.98-0.95. If there’s insulation, then insulation has lower velocity of propagation as it has higher permittivity than air, and it is in place with highest electric field intensity, and this can also shorten necessary wire length a couple %. The more insulation there is, the more shortened antenna becomes
But wait, there’s more. We can think of antenna as a lossy resonator, where R is Rrad which for halfwave dipole would be 72 ohms, + loss resistance which is smaller, and neither are changing fast with frequency. What is changing faster is X_L and X_C, and the wider wire is, the smaller both of them are, and this means that you can go further off frequency and still have acceptable SWR, i.e. antenna made with wider wire has more bandwidth. For HF this means using masts or wire cages instead of single wire, but for VHF this gets more practical
Rrad depends on physical antenna length, and if antenna is shortened, then how it was done, but for the range we’re here it won’t change much
you can consider antenna wire as a transmission line, but it will need to include ground as the other side of transmission line, and then impedance is dependent on wire diameter to height over ground ratio. it’s not very useful
pageflight@piefed.social 4 days ago
Thanks for all the explanation!
I also ran across a video from Dr. Kathryn Leigh Smith at UNC-Charlotte which describes this incidentally as part of explaining how dipoles work, and has some nice illustrations. (Current rabbit hole: Should a HB9CV’s boom be conductive and electrically bonded to its elements?)
Anyway, got my Extra upgrade!
fullsquare@awful.systems 3 days ago
Yes it has to be, that’s how you feed its two elements. Boom is at zero electrical potential and forms half of transmission line that goes to gamma matches of both parts of antenna, and you can attach it to perpendicular conductive mast, or extend it for mounting to mast (has to be perpendicular if mast is metal)
Personally, i’d go with 4el yagi if we’re talking portable operation, because boom length is such that you can make it out of plastic tube and hide elements in it when moving around
pageflight@piefed.social 3 days ago
I hadn’t heard of Moxon, I’ll check that out. I have an Arrow Yagi, so I’m mostly just playing around to see what I can build, but also thinking of something that’s a little easier/shorter to carry around for a fox hunt.
Thanks!
fullsquare@awful.systems 3 days ago
Moxon is very slightly shortened 2el yagi. That other thing is effectively weird phased array of two almost halfwave dipoles, and it’s both worse and bigger, and also harder to make because it requires capacitors for gamma match