SWR and Max power out?

Bil Paul, KD6JUI, of Dixon, California, wrote to the ARRL's Doctor, noting that he noticed when he was tuning for optimal background noise while in receive mode, it came close to -- but didn't match -- the dial positions for minimal SWR while transmitting. He asked which of the two antenna tuner dial settings would result in the most transmitted energy while in transmit mode. He also wants to know if minimal SWR always indicates the most transmitted energy going to the antenna system.
Here's what the Doctor had to say:
In answer to the first question, by setting the antenna tuner to an SWR of 1:1, you have transformed the impedance at the bottom of your antenna feed line to 50 ohms, just what your transceiver is designed to deliver its rated power into. If your receiver input impedance were exactly 50 ohms, then that setting would likely also be the position that would yield maximum receiver noise. As it happens, there is no such guarantee that the input impedance of the receiver will be exactly 50 ohms. Although it should be pretty close, a slight change may yield a stronger signal into the receiver

Regarding the second question, the transceiver is rated to provide its design output power into 50 ohms, usually within a specified SWR range. As was pointed out by Eric Nichols, KL7AJ, in a QST article last year ["Keeping Current with Antenna Performance," Feb 2009, pages 34-36], an SWR of 1:1 does not generally result in the maximum power output. By building a transmission line current meter, such as described by Eric, or later by Paul Danzer, N1II ["A Simple Transformer to Measure Your Antenna Current," Sep 2009, page 35], you can actually tune the antenna tuner to get the highest output. This corresponds to the maximum current into the antenna, which may occur at some setting different from either of the above.
Be careful, though: If you exceed the maximum rated SWR, the resulting voltages or currents in the final amplifier or output filter of the transceiver will exceed design specs and damage may result. The likely small increase in transmitted power is likely neither worth the trouble nor the risk, in my opinion.

md0man - contact with the International space station

QSO just after midnight local time with Commander Doug Wheelock onboard the ISS.

I was expecting the packet to be active, but didn't hear anything so gave a call on the voice frequencies (145.800 mhz down, 145.2 Mhz up - standard UK repeater shift - 600k),
wasn't expecting a reply, so didn't have any recording equipment ready, managed to get the phone to record the last bit of the QSO here.

He asked the country I was calling from, when I mentioned the Isle of Man, he mentioned Nicole & Chris Stott, said I tried to make contact when Nicole was on-board, but wasn't able to manage it.

Can hear me fiddling with the rotator & clunking away in the background.

Astronaut No.3 in the log & a happy Matty

http://homepages.manx.net/butler/ISS contact 27th August.wav

Radio's get everywhere!

Radio's seem to get into most pictures!!

New node on the all Island Network

GD0NFN-L is a new simplex node connected to the all Island Network with Allstar software.
Two frequencies are allocated to the node:
29.530 MHz, 434.500 MHz and most times 434.500 MHz will be used with CTCSS 110.9
The node is located at IO74TF.
The more contacts the node has the more it's range will be understood.
Any comments to gd0nfn@manxbroadband.com