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4:1 current balun

nfsus

Yeah its turned off, touch it
May 9, 2011
501
258
73
47
Arkansas
ive decided to wind my own 4:1 current. i use one from mfj right now and it works, but i want to wind my own. holy crap the differences in cores. 31 or 17 or 43.............im using an ocfd that covers 80-6 with very acceptable swr so i dont need to use a tuner. which is what i wanted. but which core is best for this?
 



 
Even here I get a 43 and a 31! One site I looked at said that 17 was an option due to the similar characteristics between 17 and 31.

Keep them coming I've been reading online for days. About to crack some old books
 
Since you also want to use that OCF on 6 meters i would prefer 43 mix.
31 would work on 160 as well at cost of efficiency at 10 and 6 meters.
current baluns need 2 cores, single core don't work so well.
 
That is a totally different beast than a 4:1 balun.
Yes, Forest Runner you are using a core as a choke.
What they are talking about here is winding two individual wires in different numbers of turns around the core and making a transformer.
Some antennas do not present a 50 ohm load, but that's what your radio wants to see.
They transform a high impedance load down closer to 50 ohms.


73
Jeff
 
I use a 4:1 Coaxial balun on my 80 Meter Loop. Is a low power (probably rated 800 watts or less) cheapie purchased from HRO like 30 years ago for under $25. Have carried around and used on Loops at 4 different places I have lived at in that time. Still in service.
 
Wondering how you determined this?
I used my ear. LOL Seemed like noise dropped more. I also went with Steve K’s updated graph and he also had better numbers with the type 61 mix.

1660959731316.jpeg

Edit: I also used my VNA and its numbers looked better and also the smith chart was looking good!
 
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