Bob, try it without the balun. In most cases, a balun isn't needed except
to reduce TVI-type problems.

Also, if you're looking for multi-band performance, consider trimming about
30 feet off the antenna - 102 to about 120 feet tends to be more tunable.
You might also consider changing over from coax to twin lead, if you can
work the logistics...

73,
Mike KI6PR
El Rancho R.F., CA

"Bob" wrote
Hi
We have put together a dipole, each leg is 66 feet. We put a 1:1 balun and
it is running about 60 feet of 50 ohm coax. Presently it is about half way
up the tower it is intended for so we could check the SWR before getting
it
up to the highest point. Presently each leg has some lags and dips, no
major
bends but it is just hanging there, over some bushes and the entire thing
is
over top of the house, and not touching anything but is very close to some
steel guy wires (uninsulated).
Now we can only tune this down to a useable SWR on the 80m band. On all
other bands we cannot tune it down to a safe operating range. We are using
a
good antenna tuner but cannot get anything useable except for 80m. Here we
are able to tune the SWR right down.

Questions???
Would we be better without that balun?

Is the fact that the dipole is still too low and close to the guy wires (
but not touching) our problem?

Any suggestions please??

Thank you.
Bob