This is the SATERN Website of Concord, CA.

Fun with the ARRL Logo

The American Radio Relay League is the legal and technical advocate for Hams. Let's have some fun with their logo!

    You know what the ARRL logo looks like. It's supposed to be a depiction of some kind of electrical circuit.
Suppose they wanted to keep it simple and make a triangle so the antenna forms to the top part of the logo.
But this would look too much like a yield sign. Better to give a diamond than a yield.

    Here is a simple diamond shape. The antenna must be smaller to fit into space at top.
Looks too much like a lightning rod. The bottom part of the icon is the other style
shown for a ground. Some folks call this style a 'chassis ground'.

    And here is the ARRL logo as we know it. A simple inductor (coil of wire) is between
the antenna and the ground. But why did they choose an inductor?

    A capacitor would have the same effect, as far as reactance goes (except the phase between any signal will
be 180 degrees from same signal around the inductor). And it's easier to draw.

    But if they wanted to show a real circuit that does something, they could at least have
resonance between the antenna and ground. Then the students could associate the letters 'ARRL'
(Amreican Radio Relay League) with this acronym:
    Antenna (or Arial, as the Brits call it);
    Reactance (inductive);
    Reactance (capacitive);
    Loss (into the ground).

  But the ARRL will keep their well-known logo as shown in the 3rd Figure.   If you actually come across
such a real circuit with a big coil, just avoid touching the top part of the wire, in case a static charge
energizes the coil and makes a big inductive back-EMF.