No Next Item No Next Conference Can't Favor Can't Forget Item List Conference Home Entrance    Help
View Responses


Grex Radio Item 63: Dipoles
Entered by ball on Sat Nov 4 05:56:42 UTC 2006:

What sort of velocity factor should I expect from 10 AWG
(~2.6mm) stranded (looks like about 14 strands) copper wire
at 448.45 MHz?

6 responses total.



#1 of 6 by eprom on Sat Nov 4 07:21:39 2006:

1.0000 if its just a bare wire.


#2 of 6 by ball on Sat Nov 4 15:49:08 2006:

It's insulated and stranded.


#3 of 6 by rcurl on Sat Nov 4 16:26:26 2006:

The velocity factor of a bare wire is less than 1.0000, depending upon the
ratio of the diameter of the wire to the free-space wavelength. It is only
1.0000 for a hypothetical wire of zero diameter and infinite conductance.
Insulated wires have much lower velocity factors, depending upon the type 
and thickness of the insulation. You can find information on this on the web,
at least in the form of the correction factor for a resonant dipole length
for different wire diameters and insulation.


#4 of 6 by ball on Sat Nov 4 17:33:41 2006:

I've been looking, but not found anything helpful.


#5 of 6 by gull on Sun Nov 5 21:55:01 2006:

You may have to use the old 'cut and try' method, with an SWR or grid
dip meter.  The velocity factor will probably be greater than 70%, so
you can start there and then trim until the resonant frequency is where
you want it.


#6 of 6 by rcurl on Mon Nov 6 01:30:27 2006:

The ARRL Handbook has a graph for the correction factor for a resonant 
dipole length without insulation as a function of the wire diameter to 
wavelength ratio.

You could calculate this more generally with 
EZNEChttp://www.dxzone.com/cgi-bin/dir/jump2.cgi?ID=447

Wire diameter and insulation properties can be included.

Response not possible - You must register and login before posting.

No Next Item No Next Conference Can't Favor Can't Forget Item List Conference Home Entrance    Help

- Backtalk version 1.3.30 - Copyright 1996-2006, Jan Wolter and Steve Weiss