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Anyone who knows anything about ham knows the following statement to be true: Reflected power does not flow back into the transmitter and cause damage.

However, there is this guy that claims he blew up his rig transmitting without an antenna, probably because his equipment is old. He just doesn't understand how reflections work and I keep trying to tell him that he needs to read up on it and that it's a complex subject but he doesn't get it. I told him to buy a walkie-talkie lol and I keep banning him but he keeps coming back under different accounts. How can I explain to him that he doesn't understand basic impedance matching?

K3ZD
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    Not an answer because "how do I convince a person about something" isn't a very concrete question. People will accept an argument or they won't. But there is something called the Maximum Power Transfer Theorem which can model any "transmission line" problem. – clvrmnky Mar 22 '24 at 15:21
  • See also: https://ham.stackexchange.com/q/6160/26657 – clvrmnky Mar 22 '24 at 15:23
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    you seem to want to convince him he's wrong, which is a losing proposition unless you offer a competing explanation of "here's what is right". The end result is that this guy's rig doesn't work anymore; can I suggest that you edit your question to include your explanation for that outcome? – webmarc Mar 22 '24 at 17:05
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  • Reflected power does (at least in part) flow back into the transmitter and can cause it to overheat. 2) Most transmitters will cut back power to prevent reflected power from causing damage. 3) Sometimes reducing xmit power isn't fast enough and the damage occurs anyway. 4) Older radios may not reduce power and may burn out instead So, basically, you're wrong.
    • – user10489 Mar 23 '24 at 12:28
  • No I'm not. I saw it on a youtube video. – K3ZD Mar 24 '24 at 17:23
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    @K3ZD if a bunch of experienced hams and this humble electrical engineer who studied this stuff contradict you and your youtube video, I might have bad news about the correctness of the youtube video or your interpretation of it. – Marcus Müller Mar 24 '24 at 18:06
  • whaaaaahhhhh :( – K3ZD Mar 26 '24 at 13:29
  • If I have any takeaway from this conversation, it is that reactive loads are tricky as heck. That power has to go somewhere. – clvrmnky Mar 27 '24 at 20:13
  • whaaaaahhhhhhhh – K3ZD Mar 28 '24 at 00:34