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[AMPS] Measuring The Inductive Reactance of a Resistor

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Subject: [AMPS] Measuring The Inductive Reactance of a Resistor
From: N5JA@contesting.com (Jon Barclay N5JA)
Date: Tue, 02 Jun 1998 19:53:35 -0500
Arsk0jn wrote:
> You can measure the reactance of a resistor if you have two that are very
> close to the same resistance value with either a grid-dip meter or MFJ-259...

I didn't go through Joe's solution, but out of curiosity I decided to try
to measure the inductance of some Xicon 51-ohm, 5W metal oxide resistors
that I got from Mouser.  The one I grabbed out of the box measured 50.3
ohms.

To test, I added silver-mica capacitors of several values in series (keep-
ing leads as short as possible), and used my MFJ259 to measure the resonant
frequency with each.  Knowing that frequency, I calculated the reactance of
the capacitor, and using that reactance calculated the inductance of the
resistor.

Here's what I got, and I don't mean to imply by the number of significant
digits that I can measure that accurately.  You'll need to use a fixed-
width font to see what I'm seeing:

CAPACITOR   FREQUENCY   REACTANCE   INDUCTANCE
---------   ---------   ---------   ----------
148.0 pf      57 MHz    18.9 ohms     52.8 nH
 50.2 pf     100 MHz    31.7 ohms     50.5 nH
 26.8 pf     135 MHz    44.0 ohms     51.9 nH

                             Average= 51.7 nH

So... for THIS VALUE of these particular resistors, this looks like a
pretty good estimate of inductance.  With the resistor alone, the SWR
indicated by the MFJ259 was only a couple of needles width from minimum,
but indicated 2:1 by 104 MHz.  Incidentally, the indicated resistance at
135 MHz was slightly higher than 50 ohms in the above experiment, just
a little less than 60 ohms.

I didn't have time to measure other values, but I hope this is useful.

73,
(the other) Jon

-- 
Jon A. Barclay  N5JA  (ex-AA5BL)
N5JA@contesting.com

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