From: "Phil Kane" on Sun, Feb 27 2005 8:23 am
On Sat, 26 Feb 2005 21:39:00 -0500, Mike Coslo wrote:

Smith charts are just as obsolete as Ohms law..............

With some of the Russian-trained engineers whose work my wife has to
correct, Ohm's Law, as well as electrical codes, are mere
"suggestions".

Phil, with some of the AMERICAN trained RF folks I've
worked with, the Smith Chart presentation on paper or on
the display screens of various RF instruments is an
indispensable tool for quickly observing both narrow- and
wideband behavior of RF structures.

Ohm's Law of Resistance is universally accepted in the radio
and electronics community worldwide...but there are some
huge exceptions with "foreign" concepts such as the Smith
Chart. Olde-tyme hammes haven't a clue on what the
wonderful chart tells them nor can they see the relationship
between complex quantities nor understand "normalization"
of impedance. Something involving algebra of three or more
quantities is apparently "rocket science" to them. shrug

I could do complex quantity calculations on my little
AMERICAN-made HP-25 and HP-67 pocket calculators
(made in HP's old plant in Oregon) and can still do them
on the Singapore-constructed HP 32S II (but designed by
HP) I have now. A few keystrokes is all. No "special
education" in Russia or any other foreign country needed
to do that. No PC is needed either, such as finding a
"calculator" Java script thing to find reactance at a
frequency (I can't believe some folks never progressed
far enough in self-education to learn the simple formulas
for reactance...or are afraid to learn and apply them).

If the Coslonaut thinks Smith Charts are obsolete then,
in this newsgroup, he will be "correct." In here the PCTA
extras are always right, anyone against them hate ham
radio and are always wrong. Rules of the Court as it were.