WV-98C issues

[Pete, WA2CWA]

Those old timey engineers at RCA were way smarter then I am, after all they invented the Smith chart, <cut> But that’s just my speculation, and as my wife will tell you I am wrong at least three times a day and its not even noon yet.

And your wife would be correct.

Phillip Smith, an amateur radio operator (call 1ANB) working at Bell Labs, devised a chart (that bears his name) that even today can help engineers understand the behavior of transmission lines.

https://www.allaboutcircuits.com/news/phillip-smith-from-amateur-radio-operator-to-creator-of-the-smith-chart/

The chart is named for Phillip Smith, an engineer at Bell Telephone Laboratories, who devised and refined it between 1936 and 1939 while working on understanding transmission lines and standing waves at what was then considered “high frequencies” of up to 1 MHz.

Smith also invented the Cloverleaf antenna which has found favor in amateur radio antenna designs over the tears.
https://www.antenna-theory.com/antennas/cloverleaf.php

[W5UF]

And it was still in use in mid 70’s when I worked for. Hewlett-Packard plant in Santa Rosa in their network analyzer instrumentation group. Once you understand how it works, it’s not hard to implement matching networks.

[KA3EKH]

Just like the fish said when it hit the concrete wall, Dam. Looks like I was wrong somehow have memories of old RCA Broadcast publications where they included the Smith chart every time. Several years ago when I was actively involved with our microwave engineering program at work we still thought the Smith chart and its use. It was fun watching P/E students working out solutions to complex impedance problems and having no idea what it meant.
A couple of our faculty were obsessed with efficiency and power transfer, so we did lots of transmission line theory and the Smith chart goes right to the heart of that. I use to do the labs for slotted line and resonance and always made me happy to see the kid’s responses with the slotted line and effects of open and shorted circuits.
I only proctored the microwave lab, never smart enough to teach, suppose that why I was wrong about the Smith chart.
Now what about the size of C4 and its affect on duration of AC readings?

[W5UF]

Which reminds me how caps have matured over the past couple decades or so. One of the caps I replaced was C1 in my WV-98A. It was a 0.1mF at 1kv paper cap about the diameter of a broom handle and at least 3 inches long - a real brute. I replaced it with same spec axial tubular (Russian surplus as I remember) less than the diameter of my little finger (and I have small hands) and maybe 1 inch long. I did meggar check another of same and it withstood 1kv with no discernible leakage. We’ve come a long way.