[Elecraft] Re: ATU efficiency and the Elecraft T1

[wayne burdick]

Darrell,

My comment about heating was in regards to saturation, which greatly 
increases loss. At QRP levels a BL-1 will never saturate, even if it is 
working into a very low or high impedance. OTOH, at high power, a 
severe mismatch really *will* heat up the balun, and if it saturates, 
it will become a lot less efficient, making losses much greater.

You're correct that efficiency of impedance transformation is the same 
at any power level -- as long as the balun isn't in saturation.

73,
Wayne


On Aug 8, 2005, at 10:57 AM, Darrell Bellerive wrote:

> On August 8, 2005 10:29 am, wayne burdick wrote:
>> at QRP levels, a large balun such
>> as the BL1 should have negligible heating loss over a very wide
>> impedance range.
>
> I would have thought that the heating is a result of inefficiency. The 
> heat is
> lower at QRP levels than at higher power levels since there is less 
> power to
> produce heat. If a balun is converting 10% of energy into heat, then 
> more
> heat is produced with 100 watts than 5 watts, but the loss is still 
> the same
> 10%. Am I wrong?
>

---

http://www.elecraft.com