linsmith (c) 1997- John Coppens

What?

linSmith is a Smith Charting program, mainly designed for educational
use. As such, there is an emphasis on capabilities that improve the
'showing the effect of'-style of operation.

It's main features are:

	-Definition of multiple load impedances (at different frequencies)

	-Load impedances can also be input as noisebridge measurements
	 (C and R values). linSmith will do the necessary conversions.
         (Only the W8BXI noisebridge design for the moment)

	-Addition of discrete (L, C and transformer) and line components
	 (open and closed stubs)

	-Connection in series and parallel

	-A 'virtual' component switches from impedance to admittance to
	 help explaining (or understanding) parallel components

	-The chart works in real impedances (not normalized ones)

	-Direct view of the result on the screen

	-Ability to generate publication quality Postscript output

	-A 'log' file with textual results at each intermediate step
	 (The Log can be exported to a file)

	-Load and circuit configuration is stored separately, permitting
      	 several solutions without re-defining the other (this may actually
         change to single files - I'm not quite convinced here)


License

	I've released this program under the GNU General Public License.
	The complete text of this license is included in this package.


To-do list

	-Arrows to the connecting lines and arcs
	-Labels to the impedances
	-Input of impedances as S-parameters (maybe Y-parameters too)
	-Optional lines through points indicating wavelengths
	-Export of a screen shot of the map (but not just the visible
	 part) to an image file
	-Make the points moveable by dragging them on the chart (the
	 handler is already in place)
	-Some kind of auto-optimization?
	-Automatically generate a legend of the colors used.

Documentation

	The documentation has been separated into a separate package,
	as the images unnecesarily increased the distribution. Also,
	the manual updates will be less frequent than the code package.
	A ready-to-use pdf is included though.

	For the separate manual package:

	If the quality of the fonts in the PDF is rather poor and the
	characters look blocked, it's probable that you are calling
	'dvips' without the '-Ppdf' option. This has to be changed in
	the preferences of LyX. The motive is that dvips by default
	uses Type 3 fonts, which are bit-mapped. Calling 'dvips -Ppdf'
	forces it to use Type 1 fonts which are scalable.

Where?

   Software distribution:

	http://linsmith.sf.net

   Home page:

	http://jcoppens.com/soft/linsmith


Feedback, help, suggestions, etc.

   Please report your experiences through the sf.net forum. That way,
everybody benefits from the comments.

   If really necessary, you can contact me personally through sf.net,
or through the mail form on my homepage.


Greetings,

John