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With new Digital TV regulations, you should hardy get ANY TVI.. on Sat or Cable none at all.
Or at least the TVI victim won't know what locked the picture up.
Could you give my neighbors a call and let them know that's not me taking on their tv.:laugh:With new Digital TV regulations, you should hardy get ANY TVI.. on Sat or Cable none at all.
I have an Imax 2000 here I was going to put up in place of my Antron 99 with GPK but wasnt sure if its worth the hassle or if its that much of a difference or not. Anyone do this before? I dont have the GPK for the 2000 buty could buy one if it makes the difference.
I have resisted posting in this thread because I know someone will have something to say about my set up that might prompt me to reply out of hand, but here goes anyway.
I am running a $59.95 Proton 99 with a 6"x3 turn balun/choke whatever you choose to call it.
Flat SWR from 1 to 40, no interference issues with the neighbors at 4W or "slightly" higher power levels.
The Proton has already been through some 75 MPH wind gusts with no problem. (of course, right out of the box it went together crooked as crap anyway) :blink:
I bought it as a temporary base antenna until I could clean up and refurbish my Hy-Gain CLR2 antenna I picked up off of the widow of an old family friend. Not too sure the Hy-Gain is going to go up until the Proton bites the dust for whatever reason.
By the way, the 6"x3 turn choke is from another old family friend who is a broadcast engineer and been a ham operator as long as I can remember.
It works and always has, I never asked him why I just did what he told me to and always have.
Sometimes I guess going the cheapest route possible pays off by accident.
I would rather be lucky as good any day. :laugh:
I am running a $59.95 Proton 99 with a 6"x3 turn balun/choke whatever you choose to call it.
Flat SWR from 1 to 40, no interference issues with the neighbors at 4W or "slightly" higher power levels.
The Proton has already been through some 75 MPH wind gusts with no problem. (of course, right out of the box it went together crooked as crap anyway) :blink:
I bought it as a temporary base antenna until I could clean up and refurbish my Hy-Gain CLR2 antenna I picked up off of the widow of an old family friend. Not too sure the Hy-Gain is going to go up until the Proton bites the dust for whatever reason.
By the way, the 6"x3 turn choke is from another old family friend who is a broadcast engineer and been a ham operator as long as I can remember.
It works and always has, I never asked him why I just did what he told me to and always have.
Sometimes I guess going the cheapest route possible pays off by accident.
I would rather be lucky as good any day. :laugh:
Hard to beat a coax choke, ugly balun etc. etc many different names it is called but it all comes down to keeping the RF off of the coax and letting the antenna do the radiating, reduces or eliminates TVI.
I use coax chokes on all my antennas, even the Mosley PROTH67B has a coax choke at the feed pointt.
Run full legal limit power when conditions require it.
I have a tv with outside antenna at the shack, never ever one ounce of TVI.
Chokes work, and were developed specifically to keep the Rf off of the feedline.
Ground the shield where it comes out of the shack to a good earth ground, ground your antenna support, if it is metal, hard to ground a tree. Use a coax choke at the feed point of the antenna, TVI, RFI no more.
You may even see the antenna perform better as now all the RF is going to the antenna and not radiating off the coax.
I use coax chokes on all my antennas, even the Mosley PROTH67B has a coax choke at the feed pointt.
Run full legal limit power when conditions require it.
I have a tv with outside antenna at the shack, never ever one ounce of TVI.
Chokes work, and were developed specifically to keep the Rf off of the feedline.
Ground the shield where it comes out of the shack to a good earth ground, ground your antenna support, if it is metal, hard to ground a tree. Use a coax choke at the feed point of the antenna, TVI, RFI no more.
You may even see the antenna perform better as now all the RF is going to the antenna and not radiating off the coax.
B
BOOTY MONSTER
Guest
"coax choke, ugly balun etc. etc many different names it is called but it all comes down to keeping the RF off of the coax and letting the antenna do the radiating, reduces or eliminates TVI."
coax chokes and baluns are two different things .
rf can still mess with digital tvs , poorly shielded components in the tv (power supplies and such) can still pick up stuff and pass it down to the video or audio
coax chokes and baluns are two different things .
rf can still mess with digital tvs , poorly shielded components in the tv (power supplies and such) can still pick up stuff and pass it down to the video or audio
Sure the Proton works, so would a 4' Firestik above a 1/4 wave ground tube installed from the connector down around the casing of the coax, but how well?
The CLR-2 was my 1st base antenna and it deserves respect, but it's going to provide you with about the same decent performance of almost any <20' loaded 5/8, which ain't bad, and should clobber your fiberglass 1/2 wave, especially the farther out you talk.
And I bet you'll get considerably less noise on the metal antenna due to it's DC ground path.
- It isn't hard to mod that into a 3-radial, 23' Penetrator, if you have a few hand tools, a few materials and decent directions.
Go ahead, find the gumption and try out that CLR-2. Mod it later. I'll send you the info if you want to try it.
Besides the limited useful frequency range of a coax choke and the much higher power required to saturate it what's the difference between an "ugly" coax choke and a 1:1 balun???
Balun,, current or voltage type?
Ugly choke just stops the RF from coming back down the shield of the coax, IE prevents the skin effect of radiating.
Balun, so many and varied could write a book on them, and there are some books out there on baluns, transmitting, receiving etc etc.
1:1 current baluns at feed points of yagis force equal amounts of current in each radiator, in theory anyway.
Two element cubicle quad require a 2:1 balun to match the impedance and also force equal amounts of current in each side of the radiator, IE wire. sure stops the skew pattern.
Beverage receiving antennas require 9:1 for impedance matching.
The ugly choke or coax balun is easy to make, and depending on the frequency being transmitted the circumference and amount of wraps will effectively stop the transmission line from radiating.
So will ferrite beads on the outside of the coax.
Google works great for info on baluns and chokes, so does LB Cebik's site. Highly recommended reading.
B
BOOTY MONSTER
Guest
A balun is a balanced (antenna) -to- unbalanced (coax) transformer
typically wound on some sort of ferrite core.
An RF choke is a air wound coil at the antenna end of a coax run. It
'chokes' RF from going down the coax shield but does nothing for the
balanced-to-unbalanced feedline/antenna situation.
[TowerTalk] rf choke or balun?
Since unbalanced transmission line has R.F. current flowing normally on the center conductor and the INSIDE of the shield woundn't a device that prevents R.F. current flow on the outside of the shield ALSO serve as an unbalanced to balanced transformer? If not where is the current flowing? The Law of conservation of energy sez if there IS an unbalance at an ugly balun's output terminals there must be current flowing SOMEWHERE beside those two terminals.
I know you even read otherwise here several times but a ugly balun is every bit as much a balun as a 1:1 current toridal balun. They do have limitations but a properly applied coax choke balun is near impossible to saturate unlike ferrite core types.
I've used both types in many installations and am confounded at some of the stuff I see posted on bulliten boards.
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What happens on the inside of coax isn't affected by what happens on the outside of that coax. Think about that, it's the only reason for being that coax has and why it was invented.
There's no violation of the conservation of energy 'laws', different generator producing that current flow on the outside of that coax, typically the antenna.
A 'coaxial choke'/'ugly balun' does no balancing at all. Since there is a difference between what happens on the inside and outside of coax, winding that coax into a coil, or inductor, only affects what happens on the outside of that coax, only affects the current flowing on the outside of that coax. If that coax is wound into the proper size of inductor, the reactance of that inductor will attenuate, impede, reduce, or stop the flow of current on the outside of that coaxial feed line. That 'impedance' is frequency related as with all inductances/coils. And the biggy, it only affects what happens on the outside of that coax, does nothing to what's on the inside of that coax.
In an electrical sense, you can 'saturate' anything if you try hard enough. Just depends on the permeability of the thingy you want to saturate, how much it can 'absorb' before getting full and spilling over. Air has a huge range or permeability. Just depends on what that air has in it, as in moisture for just one.
A 'choke balun, or 'ugly balun' is misnamed, it's not a balun in any sense of the word. It/they may have a characteristic or two in common, but that doesn't make them the same things.
- 'Doc
There's no violation of the conservation of energy 'laws', different generator producing that current flow on the outside of that coax, typically the antenna.
A 'coaxial choke'/'ugly balun' does no balancing at all. Since there is a difference between what happens on the inside and outside of coax, winding that coax into a coil, or inductor, only affects what happens on the outside of that coax, only affects the current flowing on the outside of that coax. If that coax is wound into the proper size of inductor, the reactance of that inductor will attenuate, impede, reduce, or stop the flow of current on the outside of that coaxial feed line. That 'impedance' is frequency related as with all inductances/coils. And the biggy, it only affects what happens on the outside of that coax, does nothing to what's on the inside of that coax.
In an electrical sense, you can 'saturate' anything if you try hard enough. Just depends on the permeability of the thingy you want to saturate, how much it can 'absorb' before getting full and spilling over. Air has a huge range or permeability. Just depends on what that air has in it, as in moisture for just one.
A 'choke balun, or 'ugly balun' is misnamed, it's not a balun in any sense of the word. It/they may have a characteristic or two in common, but that doesn't make them the same things.
- 'Doc