In article , Patrick Turner
wrote:

John,

You seem to be limiting your considerations to the 'tangential clipping'
and not to other distortions that will occur.

On the contrary I alluded to the other problems in my post above where I
said "while the traditional RC circuit has its problems". The problem is
that Patrick has a very thick head, so I am trying to keep things simple
so he might get the point.

Unfortunately, you have not yet done a proper comparison measurement
of a traditional detector driven off an IFT secondary, and compared
the results to what I have proposed and posted using two CF tubes.

I'm not sure what "proper comparison measurements", or "CF tubes", have to
do with the theoretical aspects of tangential clipping? Unfortunately I
don't possess an AM generator that is adequate for making these
measurements, that is a generator that will do 100% negative modulation,
or anywhere near it, with low distortion. It isn't clear that you possess
such a generator either, and you seem to have engaged in a certain amount
of shucking and jiving with respect to the actual performance of your
detector.

Why don't you describe the AM generator you are using, how close it gets
to 100%, and what the distortion is at that point? I know you are using a
CRO to check for distortion, rather than a distortion analyzer, but still
if the generator has serious distortion at the extremes of modulation it
could mask some of the faults in a detector.

I don't have the time to spend on discussions that get nowhere with
someone who hasn't the time to connect a handful of parts on a bench, and
do some real work, instead of endlessly talking around the subject,

I am working on such a project, but first I must solve the AM generator
problem. I am beginning to get an idea or two as to how I can overcome
the AM generator problem. You have nearly pushed me to the point of
action in my workshop, as Danger Dave did a few years back with respect to
the workability of an amplifier design I had been contemplating for
several years. Once I built it, Danger Dave was quickly proved to be full
of it, and I expect a similar result again, once you have motivated me
sufficiently. But first lets hear more about the AM generator you are
using for your tests?

and making incorrect statements about skull bone thickness.

As they say, "if the shoe fits wear it"! I remember the "thick as a
brick" thread from earlier this year, where you clearly demonstrated the
thickness of your skull. For those don't remember, that adventure might
have been called the "octave" matter. It was related to the slope of the
attenuation curve of an RF tank circuit, IFT, or other similar circuit.
Workshops, simulations, and what not didn't enter into the matter because
you had conveniently measured, plotted, and posted the response curves for
an AM aerial circuit which made a perfect example for discussion. The
trouble started when you and your fellow countryman Phil Allison claimed
that the slope of the attenuation curve of a tank circuit was stepper
close to resonance and that the slope of the attenuation progressively
became less steep as you moved away resonance. I had been under the
impression that the slope of the attenuation curve actually increased as
you moved away from resonance, and asymptotically approached a slope
determined by the order of the filter. After a few back and forths it
became obvious to me that the problem was one of the different frequency
reference points we were using, you and Phil were using Zero frequency as
your reference, while I was using the center frequency of the filter as my
reference. At that point I said I completely agreed with your
conclusions, given your frame of reference, but you refused to accept my
concept of using the filter center frequency as an alternative view of the
situation, and told me it just wasn't valid. That is a perfect example of
a thick skull, since generally there are alternate definitions for things,
and as long as they are consistent with the facts, in that case your
measured and posted results, they are just as valid as what you may
consider to be a more conventional viewpoint, although in the case of the
"octave" matter I am not entirely sure yours was the conventional
viewpoint, but the bottom line was they both worked, and you denied that
my approach had validity.


Regards,

John Byrns


Surf my web pages at, http://users.rcn.com/jbyrns/