[Antennas] Announcing a New Release

[Robert Lay]

Announcing a New Release   ----    SmartSmith version 1.7.2
SmartSmith is a free Smith Chart Plotting program.

Since the last publicized release (ver 1.6.2), there have been many
improvements, as follows:

Main Window -
The main window has been re-organized to separate the transmission line data and
to move the current admittance and impedance displays out of the Smith Chart
area.

Control over Design Elements -
The Short Circuit Stub control now has a more rational Up/Down control. It
starts at 90 degrees length and goes to zero length. The counter reading and the
separate electrical degrees display now agree with one another. All 3
transmission line controls now display fractions of a wavelength in addition to
the electrical degrees.

The Help File has been updated to cover all of the new features.

Previous Installation Problems Resolved -
Releases are packaged so that there should no longer be a problem installing on
any 32 bit versions of Windows - i.e., Win 98 or later. See the list of download
sites at the end of this file.

Awareness of Regional Options -
The program is now aware of the Regional Settings as set in the Control Panel.
Thus, European users will now see a comma as the decimal separator instead of
the period and will use the comma as the decimal separator for data entry.

Transmission Line Database made user friendly -
The user can create or edit the Transmission Line Database as an ASCII text file
using any text editor, such as Notepad. Two pre-defined Master Transmission Line
Databases are supplied with the program - one for Western Europe and one for
USA. The appropriate database is to be selected by the user at first use and
saved. Afterwards, that database will automatically be used unless the user
chooses use a different one. It is possible to create and save many different
transmission line databases.

An Auto-Erase feature has be added -
This feature allows the user to erase plotted points by backing up over them.
This feature is useful when the user overshoots the desired value.

User Configuration Features Added -
In addition to the configuration of the transmission line characteristics and
the open and short circuit stub impedances, the user can also configure:

- the Font used for displays.
- the Auto-Erase flag (turns Auto-Erase on or off)
- the width of the points in Auto-Erase mode

Saving the Configuration -
The configuration is now saved in an INI file whenever the user chooses to save
the configuration. The INI file initializes the program with the user saved
configuration at each start up. The configuration items that are saved include
the following:

- Font
- Auto-Erase flag and the width of the plot points in Auto-Erase mode
- Transmission Line Database Filename
- Line velocity factor, characteristic impedance and Frequency
- Stub termination resistance, capacitance and inductance

New Tools -
The Tool set now includes a tool for adding another Transmission Line Type to
the Transmission Line Database. The tool accepts two points on the attenuation
versus frequency curve and converts that to coefficients, "a" and "k" used in
the transmission line database. The user also enters a velocity factor,
characteristic impedance, Ro, and a description. The tool appends a new record
to the user specified database or starts a new database.

Plotting Package -
The plotting package, NetworkProcessor, which is designed specifically to
support SmartSmith, has been upgraded (as of 2/9/2005) to include SWR plotting
(in addition to both magnitude and phase angle of Voltage, Current and
Impedance).

Packaging -
The download packages are as follows:
SmartSmith and the Plotting Package, NetworkProcessor, are now packaged together
as a single installation kit.
Network Processor (the plotting package), is also available as a separate
package from the f20 site and the qsl site.

Download Site:
 http://zaffora.f2o.org/W9DMK/W9dmk.html
High Speed Download Site:
 http://64.217.230.66
Limited Site:
 http://www.qsl.net/w9dmk  (this site has NetworkProcessor plotting package and
other free software offerings but does not have SmartSmith)

Bob Lay (W9DMK), Dahlgren, VA
w9dmk at crosslink.net
http://www.qsl.net/w9dmk