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Re: Antennas
Roger Stierman
One more slide rule off-topic, please.
I have in my possession a slide rule picked up on the trashbin at Ames Lab IA State.? It is bamboo, and has the note 'This slide rule has been furnished as a replacement due to the War effort.? A fee of $1 can be sent with this slide rule for a new slide rule before July 31, 1942'.Needless to say I still have it on my 'In Case of Emergency ' shelf. WA0VYU? Sent from the all new AOL app for Android On Tue, Jul 26, 2022 at 8:06 PM, Jim Lux<jimlux@...> wrote: On 7/26/22 4:03 PM, KENT BRITAIN wrote: ? One must wonder if you ever owned a slide rule? hihiYou may laugh, but sometimes, small changes in dimensions are important, and therefore so is temperature. For Aluminum, one might see a length change of 0.2% (and corresponding resonant frequency change) for a temperature change of 100C.? 100C sounds like a lot, but between a cold night in Winter, and a hot day in Summer (particularly if the aluminum is shiny), that's not an unreasonable temperature delta. If your antenna is in space, a 100 degree change from full sun to full shade is pretty common. But on the ground, maybe a 50C swing is more likely - that is a 0.1% length change, the gain doesn't change much (0.2%) but more important is the phase change of 0.2 degrees (due to the rapid change in reactance). 0.2 degrees isn't a lot, but if you're trying to form nulls, 0.2 degrees turns a perfect null into a -40dB null.? Large arrays forming a radio telescope care about this kind of thing. You don't want the apparent source to be in a different place in the sky. In a more extreme case - When measuring the range to a spacecraft, we send a signal to the spacecraft, which transmits it back, and we compare the phase of the outgoing and the incoming signal. A properly designed system can make this measurement to about 1 part in 10^15.? Let's put that into context - it's about 10^9 km to Jupiter (at opposition). So that's 10^12 meters.? We're making that measurement to 1 mm.? (it's about 36 degrees phase difference at Ka-band - 32 GHz). So we need to know not only the temperature of the antennas at both ends, but the temperatures of the waveguide and feedlines.? (and the gravitational and thermal distortion of the DSN antenna, etc.). As for *why* - by making precise measurements of range (to cm) and velocity (to mm/2) we can very accurately measure the orbit/trajectory of a spacecraft, and from that, we can measure the gravitational field of Jupiter, and from that we can infer what Jupiter's internal structure might be. But yeah, if you're throwing a dipole for 40m up in a tree, measurement to the nearest inch/cm is probably good enough. |
Re: Antennas
I have a large K&E slide rule that must have 26 or so scales on it. I also
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have a 6 inch Pickett that we used to call the "Pocket Pickett" :-) Zack W9SZ On Tue, Jul 26, 2022 at 6:22 PM Stephen W9SK <stephen@...> wrote:
I have two different Post slide rules from back in the day, but my most |
Re: Antennas
On 7/26/22 4:03 PM, KENT BRITAIN wrote:
One must wonder if you ever owned a slide rule? hihiYou may laugh, but sometimes, small changes in dimensions are important, and therefore so is temperature. For Aluminum, one might see a length change of 0.2% (and corresponding resonant frequency change) for a temperature change of 100C. 100C sounds like a lot, but between a cold night in Winter, and a hot day in Summer (particularly if the aluminum is shiny), that's not an unreasonable temperature delta. If your antenna is in space, a 100 degree change from full sun to full shade is pretty common. But on the ground, maybe a 50C swing is more likely - that is a 0.1% length change, the gain doesn't change much (0.2%) but more important is the phase change of 0.2 degrees (due to the rapid change in reactance). 0.2 degrees isn't a lot, but if you're trying to form nulls, 0.2 degrees turns a perfect null into a -40dB null. Large arrays forming a radio telescope care about this kind of thing. You don't want the apparent source to be in a different place in the sky. In a more extreme case - When measuring the range to a spacecraft, we send a signal to the spacecraft, which transmits it back, and we compare the phase of the outgoing and the incoming signal. A properly designed system can make this measurement to about 1 part in 10^15. Let's put that into context - it's about 10^9 km to Jupiter (at opposition). So that's 10^12 meters. We're making that measurement to 1 mm. (it's about 36 degrees phase difference at Ka-band - 32 GHz). So we need to know not only the temperature of the antennas at both ends, but the temperatures of the waveguide and feedlines. (and the gravitational and thermal distortion of the DSN antenna, etc.). As for *why* - by making precise measurements of range (to cm) and velocity (to mm/2) we can very accurately measure the orbit/trajectory of a spacecraft, and from that, we can measure the gravitational field of Jupiter, and from that we can infer what Jupiter's internal structure might be. But yeah, if you're throwing a dipole for 40m up in a tree, measurement to the nearest inch/cm is probably good enough. |
Re: Antennas
Hi Scott,
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As an aside, I have used talc as a lube for bamboo slide rules over the decades. My old Post Versalog II, (with leather case, and both in MINT condition), had small amounts of talc placed in the groves, (by myself), of the bamboo, over the years I used it, and it works very well to this day, still slides like butter... Just thought I would pass that on to you, as you collect them... My father taught me that trick. I have no idea if it harms the sliderule, but mine seems to have survived use of talc as a lube... 73, and thanks, Dave (NK7Z) ARRL Volunteer Examiner ARRL Technical Specialist, RFI ARRL Asst. Director, NW Division, Technical Resources On 7/26/22 17:30, D. Scott MacKenzie wrote:
I collect sliderules. I have approximately 300. Pickets. Post, K&E, |
Re: Antennas
I collect sliderules. I have approximately 300. Pickets. Post, K&E,
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Dietzen, Chavez Roos, as well as some unique Russian and Chinese sliderules. My favorite is a K&E 6" Deci-Lon. On Tue, Jul 26, 2022, 19:22 Stephen W9SK <stephen@...> wrote:
I have two different Post slide rules from back in the day, but my most |
Re: Antennas
I have two different Post slide rules from back in the day, but my most valued one is specifically designed for electronics formula use by Picket (reactance, resonance, resistance, etc).
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Stephen W9SK -----Original Message-----
From: [email protected] <[email protected]> On Behalf Of KENT BRITAIN Sent: Tuesday, July 26, 2022 4:04 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [nanovna-users] Antennas One must wonder if you ever owned a slide rule? hihi (Still own my eye saving yellow one by Picket) I recently saw an article for a 20 Meter beam with dimensions in 1/10,000ths of an inch. Someone needs to slap that lad up side of the head with a K&E slide rule!Guess he also needed to establish the exact temp the Aluminum should be at for that measurement. "Why be approximately correct when you can be precisely wrong!" Tom Clark W3IWI For what it's worth, at last count I own 8 Network Analyzers. 3 Nano's on various work benches and the big one is a 40 GHz HP 8510. That's about 100 kg of analyzer. On the 3 Nano's I have, one big source of uncertainty are those 50 Ohm loads. I had those loads on the 8510 and they were pretty bad above a few Hundred MHz. If you can, I suggest getting a higher quality 50 Ohm load for your calibrations. The short and open seemed fine. Kent On Tuesday, July 26, 2022 at 05:00:08 PM CDT, G8DQX list <list@...> wrote: And forgets to say whether these are Imperial Gallons (defined as 4.54609l) or Queen Anne (as used in the USA) gallons (defined as 231 cubic inches¡ªwhatever an inch might have been at the time, though today the US and UK agree that an inch is 25.4?mm by definition¡ªwhich is 3.785411784l.) [Thus the US gallon is about 83.27% of a UK gallon.] Yours terribly pedantically, Robin, G8DQX |
Re: Antennas
One must wonder if you ever owned a slide rule? hihi
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(Still own my eye saving yellow one by Picket) I recently saw an article for a 20 Meter beam with dimensions in 1/10,000ths of an inch. Someone needs to slap that lad up side of the head with a K&E slide rule!Guess he also needed to establish the exact temp the Aluminum should be at for that measurement. "Why be approximately correct when you can be precisely wrong!"? Tom Clark W3IWI For what it's worth, at last count I own 8 Network Analyzers.? 3 Nano's on various work benches and the big one is a 40 GHz HP 8510.? That's about 100 kg of analyzer. On the 3 Nano's I have, one big source of uncertainty are those 50 Ohm loads.?? I had those loads on the 8510 and they were pretty bad above a few Hundred MHz.? If you can, I suggest getting a higher quality 50 Ohm load for your calibrations.?? The short and open seemed fine.? Kent On Tuesday, July 26, 2022 at 05:00:08 PM CDT, G8DQX list <list@...> wrote:
And forgets to say whether these are Imperial Gallons (defined as 4.54609l) or Queen Anne (as used in the USA) gallons (defined as 231 cubic inches¡ªwhatever an inch might have been at the time, though today the US and UK agree that an inch is 25.4?mm by definition¡ªwhich is 3.785411784l.) [Thus the US gallon is about 83.27% of a UK gallon.] Yours terribly pedantically, Robin, G8DQX |
Re: cut/lengthen vertical antenna wire
And forgets to say whether these are Imperial Gallons (defined as 4.54609l) or Queen Anne (as used in the USA) gallons (defined as 231 cubic inches¡ªwhatever an inch might have been at the time, though today the US and UK agree that an inch is 25.4?mm by definition¡ªwhich is 3.785411784l.) [Thus the US gallon is about 83.27% of a UK gallon.]
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Yours terribly pedantically, Robin, G8DQX PS: Back on topic, the joy of a wire-built antenna is that it is cheap and easy to build and *experiment* with, and one can learn a lot by just trying and seeing what happens. On 26/07/2022 02:54, KENT BRITAIN wrote:
Much like the lad who puts 7 gal of petrol in his car, drives 243 miles,and says he got 34.71428532 miles per gallon. |
Re: nanovna-saver question
#nanovna-saver
On Mon, Jul 25, 2022 at 11:26 PM, Roger Need wrote:
Thanks Roger. Using Linux Mint here. Found the file though ~/.config/NanoVNASaver/NanoVNASaver.ini But there don't appear to be any sweep settings in that file except SweepColor=@Variant(\0\0\0\x43\x1\xff\xff\xef\xef))))\0\0) Please could you look at your NanoVNASaver.ini file to see if it's different on Windows. |
Re: Touchstone file format
#consolecommands
#docs
On 7/26/22 3:09 AM, Ho-Ro wrote:
While the file format spec may define formats for things other than S parameters, they're not particularly common. Not to say that they don't exist, but every tool I've used only uses S parameters.In a .S1P file it is not an impedance that is described but S11Did you see the example 9 and 10 from my posting below (out of touchstone rev 2.0 spec)? They are, after all, called SnP files <grin> |
Re: cut/lengthen vertical antenna wire
Hey guys,
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Bringing the? reactance to zero (if you really want that for your antenna), don't forget that there might be a coax cable involved in the measurement set-up.? That coax can move the Z of the antenna around the Smith Chart if the Z of the antenna is not exactly 50 ohms (ohmic). Of course there are ways to solve that :-) 73 Arie PA3A Op 26-7-2022 om 13:52 schreef Donald S Brant Jr: I agree with W0LEV 100% on using the phase information to guide one's tuning efforts. That valuable phase information is what puts the "Vector" in "vector network analyzer"(VNA) and is what makes it so much more useful than just a VSWR bridge or reflectometer. Having phase information is also what allows the amazing error correction to do its magic and permit such accurate measurements in such an inexpensive instrument. The ability to do so over a swept frequency range is icing on the cake, it helps you to get a feel of the behavior of the network you are measuring. |
Re: cut/lengthen vertical antenna wire
I agree with W0LEV 100% on using the phase information to guide one's tuning efforts. That valuable phase information is what puts the "Vector" in "vector network analyzer"(VNA) and is what makes it so much more useful than just a VSWR bridge or reflectometer. Having phase information is also what allows the amazing error correction to do its magic and permit such accurate measurements in such an inexpensive instrument. The ability to do so over a swept frequency range is icing on the cake, it helps you to get a feel of the behavior of the network you are measuring.
Folks who just look at an SWR number at a single frequency are missing out on much of the capability of this tool. 73, Don N2VGU |
Re: Touchstone file format
#consolecommands
#docs
On Tue, Jul 26, 2022 at 09:46 AM, Ho-Ro wrote:
Sorry, checked the wrong input file, scikit-rf cannot read Z-Parameter (NotImplementedError: only s-parameters supported for now.): Traceback (most recent call last): File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module> File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/skrf/network.py", line 423, in __init__ self.read_touchstone(filename) File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/skrf/network.py", line 1752, in read_touchstone raise NotImplementedError('only s-parameters supported for now.') NotImplementedError: only s-parameters supported for now. As a consequence I will name my Z-parameter files *.z1p from now on - what's your opinion? Martin |
Re: Touchstone file format
#consolecommands
#docs
In a .S1P file it is not an impedance that is described but S11Did you see the example 9 and 10 from my posting below (out of touchstone rev 2.0 spec)? Example 9 (Version 1.0): Example 10 (Version 2.0):You can for sure store also impedance in a s1p file if you calculate the Z-parameter from S-parameter - this is what my tool does, fetching S11-parameter, taking a line for line with S-parameter (freq S11.re S11.im) and creating lines of normalized Z-parameter (freq R/Z0 X/Z0) preceded by a header for Z-parameter (# HZ Z RI R 50). Calculation: if format_z: # calculate normalized impedance as Rn + jXn = R/Z0 + jX/Z0 according to this doc # freq, Sr, Si = line[:-1].split( ' ' ) freq = float( freq ) Sr = float( Sr ) Si = float( Si ) Sr2 = Sr * Sr Si2 = Si * Si Sr_2 = ( 1 - Sr ) * ( 1 - Sr ) Rn = ( 1 - ( Si2 + Sr2 ) ) / ( Sr_2 + Si2 ) Xn = ( 2 * Si ) / ( Sr_2 + Si2 ) return f'{freq:10.0f} {Rn:15.9f} {Xn:15.9f}' |
Re: cut/lengthen vertical antenna wire
Hey Doug,
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If you can figure out how to build and tune an antenna with the Nano after a stroke you¡¯re OK in my book (a retired family doc). The body may not follow all your commands but some of the brain is still working. My friend in Virginia, Guy, has had two strokes too and just serviced a QRP+ and brought it back to life. Do what you can do and pray your body and brain heal enough to enjoy this or any hobby. You need good vibes and for me ham radio provides them. Dave K8WPE David J. Wilcox¡¯s iPad On Jul 25, 2022, at 2:33 PM, DOUGLAS SEWELL via groups.io <douglassewell@...> wrote: |
Re: Touchstone file format
#consolecommands
#docs
F1AMM
When developing my nanovna mini-tools, I am unclear about the "Touchstone" file formatIn a .S1P file it is not an impedance that is described but S11 # HZ S RI R 50 6800000 0.4178235144152254 -0.6694732263322638 For each line you find in order: Frequency in Hz the real part of S11 the imaginary part of S11 If you want the impedances you have to recalculate them from S11 -- F1AMM (Fran?ois) -----Message d'origine-----De la part de Ho-Ro mardi 26 juillet 2022 09:47 |
Touchstone file format
#consolecommands
#docs
Hi,
When developing my nanovna mini-tools, I am unclear about the "Touchstone" file format regarding the storage of Z-parameters for a one-port (nanovna_snp.py). So far I follow rev 1.1, it says on page 7: Example 2: !1-port Z-parameter file, multiple frequency points # MHz Z MA R 75 !freq magZ11 angZ11 100 0.99 -4 200 0.80 -22 300 0.707 -45 400 0.40 -62 500 0.01 -89 Note that in the above example Z11 (the input impedance) is normalized to 75 ohms, as given by the reference impedance (R 75) in the option line. Unfortunately rev. 2.0 is not totally clear about the Z format, on the one hand it is not normalized (page 7): For Version 2.0 files, the reference resistance defines the system reference for the S-parameter data if the [Reference] keyword is not present. Network data for G-, H-, Y- and Z-parameters in Version 2.0 files is not normalized. Therefore, the reference resistance and [Reference] keyword have no impact on G-, H-, Y- , or Z-parameter data in Version 2.0 files. S-parameters are, by definition, normalized with respect to the reference impedance(s) and in this respect there is no difference between the treatment of S-parameters in Version 1.0 and Version 2.0 files. On the other hand, normalization of Z is mentioned in this option line example on the next page 8: Frequency in Hz, Z-parameters in magnitude-angle format, normalized to 10 ohms: # Hz Z MA R 10 But I suspect that this information is not correct, because further back in the document on page 14 rev 1.1 and rev 2.0 are contrasted for Z-parameters: Example 9 (Version 1.0): !1-port Z-parameter file, multiple frequency points # MHz Z MA R 75 !freq magZ11 angZ11 100 0.99 -4 200 0.80 -22 300 0.707 -45 400 0.40 -62 500 0.01 -89 Note that, in the above example, Z11 is normalized to 75 ohms, as given by the reference impedance (R 75) in the option line. Example 10 (Version 2.0): !1-port Z-parameter file, multiple frequency points [Version] 2.0 # MHz Z MA [Number of Ports] 1 [Number of Frequencies] 5 [Reference] 20.0 [Network Data] !freq magZ11 angZ11 100 74.25 -4 200 60 -22 300 53.025 -45 400 30 -62 500 0.75 -89 This example duplicates the data in Example 9, using Version 2.0 syntax. Note that normalization does not apply. Question to the specialists, should one stick with rev 1.1, as does nanovna-saver, or is rev 2.0 more widely used. A quick test with scikit-rf shows that it writes also in 1.1 format, but creates only S-Parameter files, even if fed with Z-parameter: !Created with skrf... # Hz S RI R 50.0 !freq ReS11 ImS11 50000.0 0.98... -0.01... ... Martin |
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