Two HF Radios/One Antenna

[Slowmover]

I bought this big switch from MFJ. It can do 6 radios and 6 antennas. They also make a 4 and 4. I know it's expensive but it fits so well in my setup. I can turn all my radios on and turn the knob to compare the receive on each one. I could do the same thing with antennas except I only have one and a dummy load. If I key up, I turn the others off. Even though it grounds the unused inputs it still pegs the meters. I have an extra cable for radios that make a guest appearance like the 980 with the 203 on top.

https://www.mfjenterprises.com/Product.php?productid=MFJ-4726

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Beautiful a thing as we see here it ain’t serious till them mikes are on a rotating turntable.

But, dern, you’re close!!

(Thought about you as I was leaving NJ. You were just down the road. But the PA Turnpike won out for the route, so I turned west before Philly).

Every man needs a rolltop desk. From within which he can re-arrange time & space to reach around the world.

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[543_Dallas]

I bought this big switch from MFJ. It can do 6 radios and 6 antennas. They also make a 4 and 4. I know it's expensive but it fits so well in my setup. I can turn all my radios on and turn the knob to compare the receive on each one. I could do the same thing with antennas except I only have one and a dummy load. If I key up, I turn the others off. Even though it grounds the unused inputs it still pegs the meters. I have an extra cable for radios that make a guest appearance like the 980 with the 203 on top.

https://www.mfjenterprises.com/Product.php?productid=MFJ-4726

View attachment 34237

A guy down the street (half mile away) has a dummy load on his coax switch. His dummy load is a solid S5 over here. We've had a few conversations that way. Since he has made contacts on it I guess he could tell people it's a great antenna.

 

[Shadetree Mechanic]

A guy down the street (half mile away) has a dummy load on his coax switch. His dummy load is a solid S5 over here. We've had a few conversations that way. Since he has made contacts on it I guess he could tell people it's a great antenna.

Probably the most broad banded antenna ever. Haha

 

[543_Dallas]

Probably the most broad banded antenna ever. Haha

Yes sir. No tuner required from dc to daylight.

 

[TheRATT]

Dang. Almost 3 hours and no replies. Either I’ve been black-balled or everyone’s at church.

Am asking which manual splitter is best and/or if a duplexer will work if both radios are HF.

I was at church.



(If you are a fan of Blue Oyster Cult or just good hard rock you may like this band. And no, they are not satanic, they just sing about the dark lord a lot).

 

[Dallas Starr]

A guy down the street (half mile away) has a dummy load on his coax switch. His dummy load is a solid S5 over here. We've had a few conversations that way. Since he has made contacts on it I guess he could tell people it's a great antenna.

Reminds me of a mildly funny story, from back in the heyday of CB radio. Around 1985.

I knew a guy (his handle was Ground Zero) who had a 3/4 wave vertical (yep... a 3/4 wave) antenna. He lived a good 15 miles away from me, up on a hill. This was back in Denver.

Anyway, he used to switch his radio over to his dummy load, not realizing that when you transmit into a coax switchbox, you are still connected to the ground side of your actual antenna, and are still radiating a signal, albeit a much weaker signal that the whole antenna radiates.

Anyway, he would sit there at night sometimes, talking into his dummy load, listening to his own voice, tweaking and fine tuning his audio, spending 15 or 20 minutes practically jerking off while saying shit like, "That's-s-s what we like to hear. Smoo-o-o-th audio. Big signal, with smoo-o-o-th audio, baby. Makin those nipples hard all over town. What a voice, you handsome devil."

Basically a whole lot of goofy stuff like that^^^... lol. Some of it pretty loony.

Then, one night, after one of these self-love fests, he switched over to his antenna, and I heard him calling for another one of his bud's. I called him, and got into a conversation with him. I brought up the fact that I could hear everything he was saying, while he was on his dummy load. He knew where I lived, and he simply did not believe me.

I probably wouldn't have believed it either, but I think the combination of his elevation and the BIG ground plane on that vertical, was apparently enough to propagate his signal for miles. He was very weak, but totally readable on a quiet channel.

Anyway, his response was... "Bullshit".

So I keyed up and said, "You don't believe me, you handsome devil? I would think that someone with such smoo-o-o-th audio would be smarter than that!"

And guess what... The guy just DISAPPEARED... lol. I never heard him key up again. I even tried calling his home a couple of times and left messages, over the following days.

NOTHING.

I guess the embarrassment was just too much, because he must've thought about ALL those nights he was out there, carrying on, and THINKING he was just talking to himself, but finding out that he was being heard as far away as my location, 15 miles away. In a BIG city.