On Sun, Mar 12, 2023 at 03:49 PM, WB2UAQ wrote:
If you are measuring baluns and large components like this below 30 MHz you
surely can get away with a lot. I guess when you run into situations at
higher frequencies you can over do it a bit for these large very widely
varying components. As others above soldering these to BNC's or SMA's should
be fine but still not alligator clips:) 73, Pete
Once you get above a few MHz. you have to be careful when measuring capacitors, inductors and baluns if you want meaningful results. Stray inductance and capacitance can make a big difference and you can get resonance effects that are due to parasitics and not the component itself. Attached is one example where a few pF of stray capacitance from using an alligator clip test jig made an inductor look like it was resonant when this was not the case. Another shows how the value of a capacitor measurement is affected by an alligator clip test jig. Comparisons were made to a fixed jig using properly spaced SOL with 50 ohm SMD.
Roger Need
