Technical Bulletins

References for the RF industry

Technical Sheets

"How-to's" on Shively products

Calculators

Presentations by Bob Surette

• "Shively Labs Meets the Very Windy Mountain"
  from May-June 2008 Radio Guide
• "Shively Labs: Antennas That Work!"
  from September 2007 Radio Guide [279 kB]
• "Shively 6014 Dual Hybrid Antenna Solves a Dilemma"
  from September 2007 Radio Guide [232 kB]
• Vermont Public Radio's Mt. Mansfield Project (October '06)
• West Virginia Public Radio chooses BE, Shively (reprinted from Radio Currents, 6/5/06)
• Interdigital combining technology at 4 Times Square (July '05)
• 4 Times Square, NY: 21-station master FM project (April '04)
• Revolutionary IBOC test at Cougar Mountain (August '02)

High-Power Testing Suite

Bulletins are in Adobe® Acrobat® format. You'll need Acrobat Reader®, a free download from www.adobe.com, to read them.

These materials are for your on-line use. Please note that some are copyrighted. Contact Shively for copying and distribution information.

First -A Quick Introduction:

We offer a suite on high-power testing of RF components, consisting of a white paper and two videos. The paper discusses the use of low-power test methods to perform high-power breakdown testing of RF components.

The two videos show the results of high power breakdown testing done on FM radiators in 1987 at Shively Labs. The radiators are a medium power sidemount radiator (Model 6813) and a high power panel radiator (Model 6014). Peak power testing was done in a screen cage using a resonant ring as described in the paper.

Testing showed that the Model 6813 bay can sustain power levels of 70 kW wet before breaking down. Shively conservatively rates this radiator at 3 kW peak and average power at sea level.

The Model 6014 did not break down under 2.5 megawatts of energy dry (the capacity of the test rig). The video shows test results at 1.5 megawatts wet. The Model 6014 radiator is conservatively rated at 45 kW average and 100 kW peak power at sea level.

Special Interest: As you watch the film of the 6014 radiator being tested, take notice of the arc leaping to the top of the screen at the very end of the film. This was a self-sustaining arc, something that is rarely seen and to the best of our knowledge, had never been filmed at the time of this test.