Scopematch

I read these very interesting blog posts from VE7SL:

http://ve7sl.blogspot.ca/2014/08/your-lf-stations-best-friend-scopematch.html

http://ve7sl.blogspot.ca/2014/08/your-lf-stations-best-friend-scopematch_5.html

Although they are from a decade ago I had never seen this Scopematch design before.  M0BMU came up with a very simple, elegant design which allows the user to see the phase relationship between the RF current and voltage on a transmission line.  Why didn't I ever think of that ?  (the answer:  I'm not too bright)

The photos took me back to when I was in college studying the transmission of electrical power.  Similar to the RF waveform, 60 Hz power (in the US) waveforms for current and voltage can be out of phase just like the RF on a transmission line.  The cosine of the phase angle between the voltage and current is called the power factor.  The power factor for a resistive load like a toaster or an incandescent lamp would be 1 (the cosine of zero degrees where current and voltage are in phase).  Power factor is explained in more detail in the wiki:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_factor

Although this design was done for LF and MF transmitting I can't see any reason why it couldn't work at HF just as well.  Another item to put on the "gotta try it" list !

Best Regards,
Chuck, WB9KZY
http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm