On Sat, 19 Mar 2005 12:45:53 -0800, "RST Engineering"
wrote:

My bag is VHF, so forgive me if I've bumbled up the calculations. My
numbers show that a standard 108" whip has an input impedance of somewhere
around 0.04 ohms in series with a 22 pf capacitor.


Not quite. Over perfect ground the Z is ~ 0.37 -j8170 @ 1.9 MHz for a
12mm diameter radiator.

So you add an inductor of +j8170 with say Q=250. That gives Z =
(0.37+32.68) +j0 = 33.05 +j0. Then you add 16.95 ohm of ground loss
and Z = 50 +j0.

A perfect match with a gain of -17 dBi. Easy huh?


These numbers are so far from what I normally deal with that I'm not sure
that I'm right, and I'd appreciate somebody who actually works down in this
area giving my numbers a reality check.

If they ARE right, how in heaven do most people match to 0.04 ohms? The 22
pf I can resonate out with a 1 millihenry choke (or thereabouts), but how do
most people match 50 ohms to fractional ohms in the homebrew arena -- that
is, without just going out and buying a "magical matching box" of some sort?

Jim