Inherently balanced ATUs – part 2

Inherently balanced ATUs reported an experiment to measure the balance of a simulation of Cebik's “inherently balanced ATU”.

This article reports the same equipment reversed so that the common mode choke is connected to the output of the MFJ-949E.

The second experiment

The test circuit is an MFJ-949E T match ATU followed by A low Insertion VSWR high Zcm Guanella 1:1 balun for HF.  A banana jack adapter is connected to the balun output jack, and resistors of 50Ω and 100Ω connected from those terminals to provide a slightly asymmetric load.

The voltage between ground and each of the output terminals was measured with a scope, and currents calculated.

Above are the measured output voltage waveforms at 14MHz.

Lets work out the current amplitudes. Above, V1 (yellow) is 4.0divpp, V2 (cyan) is 8.0divpp. I1=V1/50=4.0*0.2/50=16.0mApp. I2=V2/100=8.0*0.2/100=16.0mApp.

Expanding the timebase allows better measurement of the phase difference.

V2 lags by a half cycle and 1.0µs, so V2 phase is -180-1.0e-9*14e6*360=-180-5=-185°.

Lets calculate the common mode and differential component of current in each load resistor. We will use Python as it handles complex numbers.

>>> i1=0.016
>>> i2=0.016*(math.cos(-185/180*math.pi)+1j*math.sin(-185/180*math.pi))
>>> ic=(i1+i2)/2
>>> abs(2*ic)
0.0013958203956907485
>>> id=(i1-i2)/2
>>> abs(id)
0.015984771545309726
>>> abs(2*ic)/abs(id)
0.0873218858170239
>>> 20*math.log(abs(2*ic)/abs(id))/math.log(10)
-21.177537875409207

So, the differential component of current is 16.0mApp, and the total common mode current is 1.40mApp, the total common mode current is 9% of the differential current or 21.2dB less than differential current.

Calculation of the common mode component of current involves the addition of two almost equal and almost opposite phase currents and is very sensitive to uncertainty in each of the measurements using this measurement method. This balun should achieve |2Ic/Id|>35dB in this scenario, but it would take a higher accuracy measurement system to measure it.

The fact that the “inherently balanced” topology measures 18dB worse that this experiment speaks volumes for the failure of the “inherently balanced” topology.

The measurements reported here are for the specific scenario (components, frequency and load), and should not be simply extrapolated to other scenarios.

The calculated imbalance if you like applies to the specific test circuit, and cannot really be extended to use of this balun in an antenna system scenario.

Continued at Inherently balanced ATUs – part 3 .