Overheating balun cores – how much power does it take?

Overheating balun cores – an explanation discussed a scenario where an operator reports unstable VSWR after 30s of ATU adjustment.

Where the antenna system incorporates ferrite elements, a possible / likely explanation is that loss in a ferrite core has been extreme and raised core temperature to the Curie temperature at which it quickly loses its magnetic properties.

In that scenario, theoretically, the complete temperature curve would look like this.

The initial rate of temperature increase here is 5°/s, and we can safely assume that almost all of the power absorbed by the core is stored as heat energy, little energy is lost the the air when the temperature difference is very small. Continue reading Overheating balun cores – how much power does it take?

Designing a Gamma Match – Simsmith design tool – how to

Designing a Gamma Match – Simsmith design tool and confirmation of as-built antenna posted a Simsmith design tool to assist in designing a Gamma Match.

Let’s walk through an example.

Above is an example for discussing the Gamma Match. In this case, the assumed feed point impedance of a simple split dipole feed is 17+j2Ω, and the challenge is to design a practical Gamma Match to match it to 50+j0Ω.

The design tool assumes that the connections to the open circuit stub are at the feed point, ie that the gap in the gamma arm outer is at the inboard end. There are other ways to build a gamma match and the model may not suit them without tweaking. Continue reading Designing a Gamma Match – Simsmith design tool – how to

Designing a Gamma Match – Simsmith design tool and confirmation of as-built antenna

Designing a Gamma Match – confirmation of as-built antennas was based on some online calculators to provide key values to a Simsmith model of a Gamma Match.

This article provides an updated Simsmith model that incorporates the necessary calculations (ie without depending on external calculators).

Much is written about the virtue of the Gamma Match, and near as much about how they work, and the difficulty in design and implementation.

Designing a Gamma match using a Smith chart showed a design method for a simple Gamma Match using a Smith chart as the design tool.

This article visits the implementation on a pair of antennas that I built 50 years ago, and are still in use today (albeit with some small preventative maintenance once during that interval). The basic antenna is a four element Yagi for 144MHz copied from an ARRL handbook of the time, probably based on NBS 688. It was designed to deliver a split dipole feed point impedance of 50+j0Ω.

I built them using a Gamma Match, partly to get some familiarity, but mostly to implement a Gamma Match that was reliable, weatherproof and lasting… features that are alien to most implementations I had seen at that point.

Both antennas were constructed and the Gamma Match adjusted for VSWR<1.1 using a Bird 43 directional wattmeter. The dimensions of each (including the key gamma dimensions) are the same, not surprising, but a confirmation of repeatability. See Novel Gamma Match Construction for more discussion.

Above is a dimensioned drawing of the construction. Continue reading Designing a Gamma Match – Simsmith design tool and confirmation of as-built antenna

Overheating balun cores – an explanation

Correspondents raise instances of damage to baluns with me from time to time, and there is a steady stream of reports online.

One of the very common reports is of something unexpected happening while adjusting an ATU, after perhaps 30s of power applied, VSWR suddenly becomes unstable, changing for some unknown reason, and attempts to find optimal settings of the ATU fails.

A likely cause of this is non-linear behavior of the ferrite core in a balun in the system.

Let’s talk about that.

A theoretical model of temperature rise

A simple model that gives useful insight is to consider the case of a toroid core in still air, being heated by constant applied RF power giving rise to core loss.

Core temperature rises quickly initially, then more slowly as the core heats up and loses more and more heat to the surrounding air.

We can write and expression for core temperature T: \(T=T_{max}\left(1-\mathrm{e}^{-\frac{t}{\tau}}\right)\) where τ is the thermal time constant and Tmax is the final temperature if things continued without disruption.

Above is an example where τ=20s and temperature rise is 100°.

Note that at the beginning (t=0), the slope of the line is pretty constant, but as temperature increase, slope decreases until eventually it is almost zero. Continue reading Overheating balun cores – an explanation

Power dissipation of a sealed plastic balun enclosure

Correspondents raise instances of damage to baluns from time to time, and there is a steady stream of reports online.

The thinking is often “my balun is rated at 5kW, how can I damage it with a transmitter that is only 100W?”

This article discusses heat dissipation from a small sealed plastic enclosure. This is not an unusual problem, it exists widely in industry and is solved routinely for enclosures ranging from small ones like these to large switchboard enclosures.

An example balun deployment

Above is a balun enclosure located under the soffit of the building, so outside in free air and where the sun will not shine on it. Continue reading Power dissipation of a sealed plastic balun enclosure

Measurement of various loss quantities with a VNA – a worked example

This article documents a worked example of the matters discussed at Measurement of various loss quantities with a VNA.

Above is an air cored solenoid of about 20µH connected between Port 1 and Port 2 of a NanoVNA-H4 which has been calibrated. The whole lot is sitting on an inflated HDPE bag to isolate the DUT from the test bench. Continue reading Measurement of various loss quantities with a VNA – a worked example

Measurement of various loss quantities with a VNA

Loss, Insertion Loss, and Mismatch Loss terms pre-date VNAs and S parameters, but a VNA can be a very productive way of measuring / calculating these quantities for two port networks.

This article explains the basic S parameters and their use to measure and calculate Loss, Insertion Loss, and Mismatch Loss.

S parameters

Review of s parameters of a two port network.

Above, a two-port network showing incident waves (a1, a2) and reflected waves (b1, b2) used in s-parameter definitions. (“Waves’ means these are voltages, not power.) Continue reading Measurement of various loss quantities with a VNA

Definitions of important loss terms

Readers of my articles occasionally ask for explanation of the distinction between meanings of:

  • Insertion Loss;
  • Mismatch Loss;
  • Loss (or Transmission Loss).

These terms apply to linear circuits, ie circuits that comply with linear circuit theory, things like that impedances are independent of voltage and current, sources are well represented by Thevenin and Norton equivalent circuits. Continue reading Definitions of important loss terms

MismatchLoss of severely mismatched EFHW transformer – system response

It is easy to become focused on the behavior of a component, but don’t lose sight of the fact that it is but a component of a system where components interact, and the system response is the bigger / more complete picture.

In the article MismatchLoss of severely mismatched EFHW transformer , a caveat stated and restated was:

Transmitters are not necessarily well represented as a Thevenin source, so measurements using such sources (VNA, SA with TG) and application of linear circuit theory are not necessarily applicable.

So, can we estimate a likely system response to a 30+j0Ω load, good 1:49 transformer and modern HF 100W (20dBW) SSB transceiver designed for a nominal 50Ω load?

The following analysis gives a likely solution and it deals with a common implementation where the source is anything but a Thevenin source.

PA VSWR protection

Most transceivers of this type incorporate several PA protection measures, and one of them is commonly to reduce IF gain so that reflected power measured in a directional coupler near the antenna jack is not more than say 4W. This accommodates VSWR up to 1.5 without power reduction due to VSWR protection.

So, with an extreme mismatch, Pref=4W due to the PA protection system.

30+j0Ω load via an ideal 1:49 transformer

The scenario of 30+j0Ω load if that of the quoted measurement in the previous article, used without comment on its merit.

Lets use the calculation from the previous article, the equivalent case of a 50Ω Thevenin source with load of (30+j0)/49=0.6122+j0Ω.

The quantity 1/(1-|s|^2) is the MismatchLoss, \(MismatchLoss=\frac{P_{fwd}}{P_{fwd}-P_{ref}}=\frac1{1-\frac{P_{ref}}{P_{fwd}}}\) and it is 20.92, so we can calculate that if Pref=4w (by virtue of PA protection), that \(P_{fwd}=\frac{P_{ref}}{0.952}=\frac4{0.952}=4.202 \text{ W}=6.235 \text{ dBW} \). Continue reading MismatchLoss of severely mismatched EFHW transformer – system response

PVC speaker twin – loss model applied

One of the many gems of ham lore that I was fed as a beginner almost sixty years ago was that 23/0.076 (0.67mm^2) PVC insulated twin flex was suitable as an RF transmission line at HF, and that it had a Characteristic Impedance Zo close to 75Ω.

It seems that these claims have been extended to apply to lighter gauge cables often called speaker cable or bell wire.

This article explores two cases of the application of a light grade of speaker twin to a G5RV antenna. The scenarios is a G5RV Inverted V with 7m of speaker twin from dipole to the coax section, and loss is calculated for the speaker twin section at 14.1 and 3.6MHz.

PVC speaker twin copper / PVC 0.2mm^2 characteristics

The following articles report measurement of a sample of speaker twin, and derivation of a simple loss model:

From those articles, the loss model is copied for reader convenience.

Above is a plot of the calculated MLL (red dots) based on the s11 measurements, and a curve fit to the model \(MLL = k_1\sqrt f+k_2f \text{ dB/m}\). Continue reading PVC speaker twin – loss model applied