As a ham of over 30 years and an electrical engineer, 2 thumbs up for a great video to educate about SWR.

I worked in the 2-way radio field for 33 years and before we had analyzers, if we suspected a problem with the antenna or coax, we would send someone up the tower with a wattmeter and dummy load. First, with the wattmeter and dummy load, we would see exactly how much power was making it through the 300' (or so) of hardline coax to the antenna. That would tell us exactly how much loss was in the cable, then we would connect to the antenna to read reflected, in case the antenna had a problem.
Those were practical, step-by-step procedures to find the problem.
Finally we looked around to see if a building had been built that was taller than what our antenna was, blocking the antenna view of the antenna towards the area of antenna coverage.....
Yes, that happened once when I was trying to troubleshoot an antenna coverage problem, on one of our downtown Norfolk repeaters. Lol
They had just built the Norfolk Southern building that eventually loomed (as it was being built) over the building that housed some of our repeaters.

Great explanation. I've explained this to many folks over the years, but you crystalized it very well for a short video.
Generally speaking, most hams understand SWR as well as they understand grounding and bonding - almost nill

Nice job Michael!  Made me think past the SWR standards.  I would really like a video taking this a little farther using a RigExpert AA-650 Zoom  or similar and talk about what the optimum X,Z,R numbers on the meter would be to strive for when tuning up an antenna.

The only thing you could have mentioned would be CM chokes.  Often, that will solve a lot of ills regearing SWR problems.  Maybe another video for those less familiar with this very interesting phenomenon.

This information is just gold. Thanks for it!

Very Good explanation. One thing to keep in mind, transmitter finals do not like a high SWR, especially solid state, ergo the tuner. By using a tuner to match your transmitter output to the antenna system (transmission line and antenna) you are protecting your radios Tx. I use as my primary antenna a 40 meter EFHW and LMR-400 with my Elecraft K3 which has a 10:1 tuner. This combination is pretty effective on ALL bands from 80 to 10 including WARC and most times on 160 and 6 meters. From the tuner out I don't care about the SWR, all I care about is protecting my radio and the tuner does this. The list of confirmed calls on every band proves this.

What did I learn? That I know less than I thought. 😢

Another thing to Keep In Mind is that 1 S-Unit is 6db so 1/2 S-Unit is 3db, and in most cases 1 S-Unit signal loss at the other end will not be noticed UNLESS your close to the noise floor in Weak Signal Conditions where your signal could be lost in the noise. I have close to half a century as a ham and made my living as a radio tech, and I don't let lossy bands with high SWR and an Antenna Tuner prevent me from making a contact.  73  mike  🍺🍻

Excellent video!  So many hams I know are upset with 1.5:1 and jump through hoops to get from 1.3 down to 1.2.

Great emphasis on the importance of feed line. No component can be taken for granted and feed line is often just given no respect. Antennas and feed lines are where to put your money as a mere 3db improvement net output achieved by any means, better lines, better antennae, better matching and lower VSWR is the equivalent of doubling your transmitter power. And it doubles it for every transmitter connected to it. Thank you for a video worth showing to others.

VSWR is a matter of instantaneous voltage measurement. This includes forward snd reflected voltages. What MUST be remembered is that the forward and reflected voltage peaks do not occur at the same time. Plug in average of forward and reverse voltages and factor in load and power calculations can be made.

The big problem these days is that too much voltage or current can destroy power amplifier finals.

I removed a BNC connector from my 2M 1/4 vertical antenna one time, and it was only up 40-ft and noticed sparking in the connector, which represented about 2800V on the line. There was a storm about 1/2 mile away. I didn't disconnect my SB-104 and the driver transistors were blown away... on low power setting, drivers are connected to antenna. Lesson learned.

Same results happen with too-high SWR readings. Instantaneous high voltage can puncture transistor junctions. KK5R

Very helpful!  --Regards from Baltimore.

Great video, clear explanation! The concept that reflected power is not lost (minus the power dissipated in the coax and matching network, if any)  is often ignored by many hams. Thank you!

Interesting and most helpful. Thank you Michael and DX Engineering! W5JCS

9/2024:  Hello & Good Day from The Future.  I just found & subscribed to this site.  Excellent tutorial and now, I want more.  Thank You & Best Regards.

I'm old enough to remember when one of the old CB brands announced a "screw up" proof radio whose finals would not be toasted by holding down the boastin' button into really bad SWR.
I think all they did was up the voltage raiting of the finals so they could handle 100 reflected power. Might have an open and short detect and shutdown too, I don't recall... "it was the 70s, man". ;)

Thank you for spending the time to do this video. You explained SWR very well. The mists are beginning to part…..😊

Great video and timely as well.   A friend of mine is having a problem with his 80M antenna and he needed some understanding as to what he was seeing on his rig expert meter.  Thanks for this post, it is very useful.   73!

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