[Lowfer] Ultimate LOWFER Transmitter?

[John Davis]

>Neither the radiation resistance nor the loss resistance is a real
>resistance in the sense that you can't use simple circuit analysis to give
a
>picture of what is happening.    Radiation resistance is just a resistance
>in which the power radiated appears to be dissipated.    The loss
resistance
>is just the resistance in which the non-radiated power appears to be
>dissipated.   Some of this loss is "lumped" in the coil loss and some is
>distributed in ground and environmental losses.


G'day, Steve.  Sorry to be contrary, but I'd ask you to rethink about half
of that assessment.  The loss resistance IS real in almost any sense you
care to define.  Hard to analyze sometimes, certainly, but the non-radiated
power being dissipated is not apparent--it's all too real!

>Taking your assumption that the "base" lowfer antenna has an 0.02 ohm
>radiation resistance, a 20 ohm loss resistance (ground + coil loss), and is
>tuned to be a 20 ohm resistive load at the operating frequency.    Assume a
>50% split between ground/environmental and coil loss (10 ohm each).   This
a
>generous split to help your case as much as possible - mine system here is
>about 90% ground/enviromental and 10% coil.

The ratio of loss between coil and ground system is not that unusual in the
LowFER world.  For all but the luckiest experimenters living atop the most
conductive soils or working from a yacht over seawater (I wish!), the earth
losses dominate the equation something awful.  But even so, your proposed
50/50 split would not be advantageous to Stewart's argument.  Here's why.

>Now split the single radiator in two but separated by, say,  just 1m ...

Aye, as a certain great Dane is once rumored to have said, there's the rub.
This is an impermissible recasting of the problem--a straw man, if you will,
for reasons which will become apparent in a moment.

>each radiator having a series coil and joined at the base.    The radiation
>resistance stays the same at 0.02 ohm,  the ground/environmental loss
>resistance stays the same at 10 ohms, but the coil resistances are in
>parallel and are reduced to an effective 5 ohms

This is not comparable to the conditions as Stewart stated them.  If one
were to do as you say, then certainly only the coil losses would be in
parallel, not the ground loss.  Furthermore, the two masts would effectively
be in parallel (as, therfore, would the coils) so resonance would not be
achievable without even larger inductors with still more loss each....

If you examine the matter just as Stewart stated it, keep foremost in mind
that the ground losses are REAL and cannot be disregarded in the analysis.
The antennas are _not_ just a meter or two apart, and do _not_ share the
same ground system.  They are separated by enough space that the *ground
systems* are largely independent of each other (meaning, not carrying very
much of the displacement current of the adjacent antennas; well within the
bounds of practical reality when antennas are limited to the size of US
LowFERs).

When such antennas are fed in parallel and do NOT share a common ground
system, then it is the *multiple ground system losses* that are in parallel,
not just the coil losses as in your postulated conditions.  Crucial
difference!

(It's also why the battery analogy is a very apt one, actually.  It's about
internal loss resistances of multiple sources being paralleled to reduce the
effect of those losses.  And to revisit another earlier topic, it is worth
noting that the multiple radiators of the SAQ antenna system, although they
share a common "top hat" connection, do have independent counterpoise
systems at the base of each vertical run.)

So:  If the sources (be they DC power supplies or RF radiators) are of poor
enough efficiency to begin with, paralleling one very bad but physically
independent system with another of equal inefficiency will indeed result in
3 db less inefficiency.  Or to phrase it in the glass-half-full form
instead, that is equivalent to 3 db more efficiency and hence, radiated
power; and that same halving of inefficiency/doubling of radiated power can
continue through several generations of redoubling if the original losses
were bad enough--as they almost invariably are with our mere mortal LowFER
installations.

73,
John

"Man made mathematics and models, to comprehend the reality that God made."