Being a long-time (25+ years) SWL (short wave listener), I am neither confused, nor unaware of metric radio wavelength designations. The illustration of the "German Quad Antenna" gives its side lengths as 20.7' and the text below says the sides are 20.7 meters long. That is what made me wonder if the ' might be informally used to denote meters.
The choice of words on the page is slightly unusual, as would likely be the case if it were written by someone for whom English is a second anguage. -- Jason ----- Original Message ----- From: kilopascal <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; U.S. Metric Association <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Thursday, May 23, 2002 2:41 PM Subject: Re: [USMA:20169] New symbol for the meter on a German web site! > 2002-05-23 > > This is not a German site at all. The author R.V.Shenoy VU2VAS is > definitely not German. If it was a German website, the .com (dot com) would > be .de instead. Under the heading 40 metre loop antenna, note the > following: > > For antenna wire 16 or 14 SWG wire can be used. Use 75 Ohms co-axial cable > for the transmission line. The antenna should be kept at a hight of about 6 > feet from the ground level. > > SWG is the same as AWG, American Wire Gauge. It was formerly know as Brown > & Sharpe, and the "S" stands for Sharpe. Also, you are instructed to keep > the antenna 6 feet off the ground. Neither AWG/SWG, nor feet are known in > Germany. > > The only reason they are using metres, is because metres is what is used by > ham operators to denote frequency. instead of measuring the number of > oscillations of a sine wave in hertz, they measure the wavelength in metres. > It has always been that way. Never has feet or any other FFU unit been used > to denote frequency. > > Frequency in hertz equals the speed of light divided by the wavelength in > metres. > > > You must be confused because the mention of the German quad antenna. It > looks like someone converted original dimensions from metric and came up > with the feet in the diagram, yet the text says the lengths are metres. > This is the mess that occurs when FFU gets involved. > > John > > > > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "James Wentworth" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Sent: Thursday, 2002-05-23 08:29 > Subject: [USMA:20169] New symbol for the meter on a German web site! > > > > I just found a new symbol for the meter on a German web site (the text is > in > > English): http://members.tripod.com/e_friend/circuit/antenna.html > > > > The author used a ' to denote meters (see the "German Quad Antenna" and > "40 > > Meter Loop Antenna" near the bottom of the page). This is an interesting > > example of "stealing" an FFU shorthand symbol, as a ' is often used to > > denote feet ("I am 6' tall," for example). Is this a common practice in > > informal German writing? If so, is a " used to informally denote > > centimeters or millimeters in such writing? > > > > If this practice is widespread, perhaps we can co-opt these informal FFU > > symbols for our use. -- Jason > > > >
