After listening to the RF interference radiated from a PDA on a portable radio it got me to thinking. When pulses are sent down a wire the wire will radiate RF. A lamp cord plugged into the wall radiates RF. But does a wire carrying DC doesn't radiate RF, does it? What is it about a rising and falling voltage that causes a conductor to radiate RF? Thanks, Eric
"Eric R Snow"
** It has a frequency.DC has none.
........ Phil
Because the electric field falls off with the square of the distance but the electromagnetic field does not. A magnetic field is created by accelerating electric charges(so when the electrons move in a loop or because of a changing current) which can reinforce the electric field so that they propagate through space much more easily than the electric field by itself.
With DC you do not get this propagation except when the dc changes(when you start a device that uses DC power it will still create an EM wave initially). But alternating fields you get an EM wave.
Now a wire is not a great antenna but it is an antenna. When wires are configured to transport power they do a good job of keeping the EM field inside the conductor(where its much more conductive than outside the wire) but when configured as an antenna they do a much better job at radiating the power as an EM field.
To know the *exact* reason you have to look at quantum mechanics but even that isn't going to explain it all.
You'll just have to take it as an emperical fact that a changing electric field produces a magnetic field and vice versa. This doesn't happen to any extent with DC except for isolated cases(else it wouldn't be DC).
In steady state conditions DC will produce an electric and magnetic field but neither is changing(else its not steady DC). Once the DC changes then you get a changing electric field which produces a changing magnetic field which produces a changing magnetic field etc. Ofcourse when this happens you get EM radiation. It can happen with DC as long as the DC is theoretically DC, if not you do get some EM radiation.
Note that if you have AC then you always get radiation and it depends on how the wire that contains the AC is acting like an antenna.
Take a wire and put 60VAC through it with a few amps and coil it into a circle. Now you have an antenna. (there are better antennas and you don't need so much current but...)
If you do the same with another coil of wire but don't put any voltage on it and just messure the voltage off it you will pick up the signal produced by the other coil. Its not so good at 60 hz but you can play around with that idea if you want. (this is essentially what Faraday did)
Anyways, hopefully that clears up some things, Jon
ElectronDepot website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.