November 25, 2025
Static shock: both physics and websites
The myth of reflected power (2017)
Myth-busting RF post sparks debate—then the website faceplants
TLDR: A ham radio post says power isn’t simply “lost” with a bad antenna match; the author backs it with lab tests. Readers loved it—until the site crashed, spawning mirror hunts and jokes that the real loss was in the server, not the signal.
A ham radio myth got roasted and the comment section lit up. The article argues that "reflected" power from a mismatched antenna doesn’t just vanish, and backs it with lab gear: long cable, test signals, and actual measurements. Translation for non-radio folks: a bad antenna setup doesn’t magically eat half your power—there’s more nuance to how energy bounces and gets absorbed. The crowd loved the clarity, with readers cheering the takedown of old-school lore and calling out how intuition can be wrong when it comes to invisible radio waves.
Then the plot twist hit: the site crashed with “Error establishing a database connection.” Cue chaos. Commenters turned into emergency responders, posting mirrors and quips about how the real loss wasn’t in the antenna—it was in the server. One camp debated physics, another camp debated why a simple article wasn’t static HTML. And of course someone declared it “hugged to death,” internet-speak for “we broke it with traffic.”
The vibe? Equal parts science lesson and sysadmin roast. Memes flew: “SWR” (voltage standing wave ratio) morphed into “Site Webpage Refused.” The punchline: the myth of lost power got debunked—and the website demonstrated where loss really happens when your database melts.
Key Points
- •The article challenges the notion that high VSWR inherently causes large power losses by reflection alone.
- •A common model claims reflected energy returns along the line, suffers additional attenuation, and is dissipated at the transmitter’s internal resistance.
- •An experimental setup with a function generator, oscilloscope, VNA, and 24.9 m RG-58 is used to measure input and load-end voltages to compute actual power.
- •Measured cable parameters: velocity factor 0.6636 and attenuation 0.823 dB at 5 MHz.
- •In a matched 50Ω load test, the pulse arrival time (~124 ns) matches the calculated propagation distance (~24.7 m), validating the setup.