so the "492/fmhz. X %vf = length in feet" formula to get the coax to show the truest swr measurement (with cb equipment on cb channels) is nonsense ?
What I was trying to get at is, it AIN'T that big a deal!!! The first mistake that CBers AND hams make is working their tails off trying to get down that last eensy weensy bit of reflected power out of their system. Like the 1.5 thing. AAAAAAAAAK! I've just GOT to get it down to 1.1. And they'll fiddle and fiddle and fiddle tinker, tinker and tinker with it for HOURS trying to get that very LAST watt out. The bottom line is, the difference between 1.1 and 1,5 you will NEVER be able to measure. First off, and yet again, FORGET about the coax length!!!! Those formulas are for figuring the length of the ANTENNA itself. It's got nothing to do with the coax. It only counts in PHASED systems. You're spending time worrying about something that won't have a whole lot to do with things. I don't understand when or why people started getting all balled in figuring the velocity factor as part of SWR. IT DOESN'T FREAKIN' MATTER!!!! All VF tells you is, THE SPEED AT WHICH A RF SIGNAL TRAVELS THRU A GIVEN MEDIUM. ITS FASTER THRU *AIR*, SLOWER THRU A SOLID MEDIUM. THAT'S ALL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And even if this is true, it isn't enough to make a whit of difference! Tune the ANTENNA, not the coax!!!!!!!!!!
If you want to fiddle with the coax length, monkey with formulas, impress your friends, go ahead!!!!! All those formulas are a placebo!!!!!!!! Go back and look at the post about the multi-band mobile antenna. IF coax were so dadblamed important, multiband HF mobile operation would be impossible. Yet, it is done every day, it INCLUDES 11 Meters, and operators move fluidly from 3 MHZ to 29 MHZ with an SWR of 1.2 (average) and work the entire world with great success! Once again, If all this bull-sh-- about a "certain" coax length were true, then a mobile operator would have to have his mobile CHOCKABLOCK (with apologies to the late crocodile hunter) with coaxes, each cut to a "certain" length (some of them ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY FEET LONG!) to work these frequencies. And if he found himself on an odd frequency for which he had no "right" coax cut, he couldn't work it! WHERE would he PUT all that coax?
SO! TUNE the Freakin' antenna itself, not the coax. Coax length?
HORSE HOCKEY!!!!!!!!!
CWM