has anybody tried a "Balun Kit"

[wavrider]

Thanks WR, I've just got a few PIECES stuffed in the attic of my home, but I can't limit myself to 1.5kw ......... well, I could, but I might come across a nice 11m tuber too

It sounds like Marconi doesn't think I'll need to worry about TVI, and maybe I won't. But if I do, are these sleeve baluns worth the effort?

You may not have to worry about it, but if you have to try DX engineering for big wattage baluns, and be prepared to pay the associated prices for them also.

Sleeve baluns? I have never used them, but I do know operators who do, swear by them on verts for low band dx, have a couple of feet or 18 inches of them at the feed point installed over there coax, they have no tvi running legal limit on low bands, that is there story.

Try it without any balun, although I do recommend a choke balun, keeps the rf at the antenna and off the feed line. Even if the choke is at the top of the tower and eight or nine feet of coax to the gamma, it still keeps the rf from coming down the coax shield and any rf choke is better than no rf choke.

 

[RickC.]

I'm just now seeing this, have been offline for a few days.

YEP- see my thread in the Amateur Radio Antenna forum on starting a new yagi. From all indications, it does what I expected.

Since you're talking about a quad, yeah I know they're "supposed" to have a balun, but I've built them without one and they worked just fine.

I'll have to say I don't understand why a choke would be used with a yagi that has a gamma match, but I don't think it would hurt anything.


Rick

 

[GnG8d]

YEP- see my thread in the Amateur Radio Antenna forum on starting a new yagi. From all indications, it does what I expected.

LOL, that thread is where I saw the sleeve balun.

The plan is to get this quad up at 80' using the Cubex supplied feed setup and the roll of 1/2" hardline that I have. I was just wanting to add this "in case" I had CMC, RFI/TVI instead of finding out later that I'm having issues. I'm trying to replace the open air choke that I used on my yagi by using these beads for a cleaner setup.

 

[Shockwave]

I once had a Shooting Star on 58 feet of tower and it worked great. I had the idea to use two more tower sections and raise it to 78 feet. The antenna was great for local and signals come up. The antenna seemed to suffer a great deal in talking DX on the flat side at this new height. I think you're going to find that the take off angle of most 11 meter horizontal beams is going to be poor for DX in the 80 foot height range. Extra height is great for line of sight coverage but it can hinder DX if the height you use causes the ground reflections to place your take off angle at a poor elevation.

 

[GnG8d]

Well, I live down inside of some ridges, not totally in the valley, but not on a peak either. So my plan is a horizontal, 4 element quad at 80'. That'll get me into the 2nd wave and a horizontal quad should have a low TAO anyway. I mean, it would be far easier, and I would have been done by now if only going to 40', but I think going to 80' will pay off.

 

[Moleculo]

A sleeve balun is different than the palomar link.

This is a sleeve balun:

The palomar "balun kit" is a W2DU Balun like this (only with PL-259's at each end):

 

[GnG8d]

Okay, so would somebody enlighten me instead of dancing with me??

 

[GnG8d]

Okay, so would somebody enlighten me instead of dancing with me??

I'm more confused now than when I started this thread

I'll just skip it and use the Cubex recommendations.

 

[Captain Kilowatt]

I'm more confused now than when I started this thread

I'll just skip it and use the Cubex recommendations.

Like the old saying goes, "When all else fails RTFM."

 

[Moleculo]

The sleeve balun is made by attaching a 1/4 wave metal "sleeve" (copper tubing is often used) around the coax and attaching the part of the sleeve that is furthest away from the coax end to the coax shield. The rest is pretty self explanatory from the pic I posted. Sleeve baluns are commonly used on VHF & UHF antennas where the 1/4 wave length of "sleeve" is small enough to work with. At HF, they're just too big and heavy to use very often.

I posted the pics because people were using the term "sleeve balun" interchangeably with the other W2DU type, but they're different animals entirely.

 

[GnG8d]

When they say "direct feed", they mean it ............

 

[GnG8d]

I'm using LDF4-50A, so there is no braid to solder to the terminals either. I'll have to solder some stranded to the shield.

 

[W5LZ]

What characteristic of LDF4-50A do you find necessary at HF?
- 'Doc

 

[Shockwave]

Well, it's not going to be loss on 27 MHz so that only leaves power handling left.

 

[Moleculo]

If you're using heliax because you're running a crap-load of power, and you're also thinking about inserting a balun into the system, you better design or purchase one that can handle the amount of power you're running.