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proper coax choke mobile..

I will never mess with wrapping coax to try to make a choke again. They do work, but nowhere near as well as a choke that actually uses ferrite. Mfj-915's go for $20-25 on ebay, it's a no brainer.

I'm not saying some random coax wraps don't do anything, but it would be dumb luck if you made one that performed as well as a well built ferrite choke.
 
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338_MtRushmore said:
I will never mess with wrapping coax to try to make a choke again. They do work, but nowhere near as well as a choke that actually uses ferrite. Mfj-915's go for $20-25 on ebay, it's a no brainer.

I'm not saying some random coax wraps don't do anything, but it would be dumb luck if you made one that performed as well as a well built ferrite choke.
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this is what I was driving at, although you articulated it better.... I figure a 1:1 balun is easier to deal with with ferrites in a box or what have you vs a huge coffee can choke form in your car....
 
drgrant said:
I guess is my point would be, can you take a conventional 1:1 balun (eg, basically the thing with two SO239s on it) and get the same effect... there usually running the feedline through a bunch of ferrites inside it... .
Click to expand...

I went to Palomar Engineers for an assembled unit about 18” long

Using it at mobile antenna feedpoint with 5’ Skipshooter mounted on back of Peterbilt sleeper.

At other end have their RF Coax Choke (box). Insurance, till further testing. And I quit changing radios, etc.
 
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I would definitely go with MtRush on the Ferrite construction I was merely describing the way I used to do it back in the hay days of CB but there is no reason today to not construct these chokes and baluns with Ferrite technology much tighter design I have done the tests as well using a spectrum analyzer and the results are really cool.
 
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drgrant said:
this is what I was driving at, although you articulated it better.... I figure a 1:1 balun is easier to deal with with ferrites in a box or what have you vs a huge coffee can choke form in your car....
Click to expand...
Yes but the coffee can balun can double as a spitoon. LOL!
 
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A stack of ferrite cores around the coax right at the antenna always did it for me. When I first tried them I had a shit antenna install and a 12 pill. Terrible RFI and the 2 pill driver had a burn mark where the case was arcing against the seat bolt. The microphone would burn your lips.

All it took was 2 snap on ferrites from frys electronics and it all stopped. When I installed a puck mount I used 5 of them for good measure. No way I could have reinstalled the headliner with a coax choke.

I don't know what mix the ferrite from frys is but it works well at 27mhz.
 
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The 1:1 balun will cure problems like the "Hot Microphone" problem I had.
One CB'er came by my shop and told me when He keyed His radio up the traffic lights would switch over to four way flash. I had to see this for my self and we took a ride.
Sure enough when he keyed up the lights went to flash.
When we got back to my shop I checked his system. Opened the trunk and there sat a Texas Star 1600 DX. I asked if I could look inside the radio. He said not today. I asked if he had it tuned the answer was yes.
I told him to wrap eight turns of RG-213 around an 8" pvc pipe. and check it again.
Problem fixed. He stopped back after he tested it out and gave me $50.00 for my trouble.
I was amused at him going on about how I had control of some magic.
Not magic, just training.
 
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Tallman said:
The 1:1 balun will cure problems like the "Hot Microphone" problem I had.
One CB'er came by my shop and told me when He keyed His radio up the traffic lights would switch over to four way flash. I had to see this for my self and we took a ride.
Sure enough when he keyed up the lights went to flash.
When we got back to my shop I checked his system. Opened the trunk and there sat a Texas Star 1600 DX. I asked if I could look inside the radio. He said not today. I asked if he had it tuned the answer was yes.
I told him to wrap eight turns of RG-213 around an 8" pvc pipe. and check it again.
Problem fixed. He stopped back after he tested it out and gave me $50.00 for my trouble.
I was amused at him going on about how I had control of some magic.
Not magic, just training.
Click to expand...
This has been my experience also. Air wound make a big difference with major cmc problems. It's usually still there just not as noticeable, so it is considered "fixed".
 
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