You did fine for me. I was only asking because many newbies, and a few old farts, find this confusing. I'm not having any issues. Just trying to get things simpler.
You see, when I was learning to communicate with an audience as a young minister an older, wiser, & more experienced preacher gave me advice. He said not to preach at my level, but to consider the least educated person in my audience and craft my delivery for that person. He said start at the lowest potential hearer's level and everyone else would understand as well.
Because, IMO, most technical books are made for the authors to apparently show off how "brilliant" they are I don't read them. They use their books like a mirror, "Mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the most brilliant of them all?" Worthless to me.
So we hear what happens to reflected power. It's the explanations of the how, and why, that fail most.
Why? Because, based on the mode of operation, we relate our experience to when we key the mic, or speak, to initate the process that results in rf current traveling the feedline toward the antenna and outward into the atmosphere. This is a simple concept. But we're not done, yet.
Then we hear if the feedline and antenna doesn't play footsie with the 50 ohm output section of the transmitter we get a high(er) SWR (Standing Wave Ratio) than the we are told is best. This, we're told is because the rf current failed to realize there are rules for footsie, and the rf current refuses to play and goes back home. It's the current going home that bumps into the current going to play that causes the Standing Waves on the feedline, just like two people in the supermarket aisle trying to get out of each other's way and dancing back and forth into each other's way over and over. All of the players must be 50 Ohms, from the transmitter to the feedline to the antenna itself, including anything put into the feedline. All these parts are called the antenna system. This is still fairly simple, but not to everyone, but we are willing to answer all the newbie questions patiently, right?
So, we use a 50 Ohm coax and part of the "match" will play footsie. We move on to trying to get the antenna to play by the rules. If it does eventually agree to play by the rules we get a good low SWR because no one is trying to go back home bumping into each other, but all, or most, of the rf current is going out into the atmosphere.
THEN, someone comes along and tells everyone there are new rules (Clearly they've been colluding with the NCAA). These referees want to straighten all the happy-until-now footsie players out and come up with words like "conjugate," squiggly little meaningless to normal people symbols, math, arguments that are beyond the ken of the common, and quotes from the mirror gazer's books that only confuse further. Simplicity flies off the coax of most folks at the speed of sound x millions (Mhz) and we mere mortals put our feet back into our shoes, avoid the book stores, and strive for a simpler life. Footsie isn't fun anymore.
I do not have any technical antenna books but one. When someone encourages me to get one, I open the one I've got, attempt to read a random paragraph anywhere in the book, and when it is impossible to follow without reading it more than once, I decline to buy a copy of the recommended journal.
If a 5th grader can not follow an explanation it hasn't been explained. Simple.
Thank you for putting up with my post.
Homer (aka Keep It Simply Simple)
PS. Can I explain the conjugate match in simple terms? No. I have never seen nor heard an explanation that makes complete simple sense to me, so I, in turn, can not share my infinite dazzling brilliance. Frankly, it may not even exists for lowly creatures like me...
