Owen
Thanks for the advice.
My new second antenna is the original I put up: specifically a
store-bought folded dipole from DX Engineering. It is placed orthogonal
(90 deg away from) to the existing G5RV and about 20 feet closer to the
ground. I am using RG / 8U to a 4:1 Balun to 300 Ohm balanced feedline
to the folded dipole. I cut the 300 ohm feedline to optimize the folded
dipole fo 30M and above.

I appreciate the response.

John
AB8O

Owen Duffy wrote:


My article at http://www.vk1od.net/G5RV/index.htm models the efficiency
of a number of feed options for G5RV, it may provide the answer to your
questions.

Re a "simple dipole" (if that means a half wave dipole, a one band
antenna), I currently use an inverted V dipole on 40m. It is shortened to
cause VSWR=1.5 on RG6 feedline (75 ohm), and the RG6 feedline is of
length (21m) that transforms the feedpoint impedance to nominal 50 ohms
to connect directly to the amplifier (AL-811H) (VSWR1.1 at band centre).
The RG6 has a heap of suppression sleeves threaded over the load end as a
W2DU style balun. Total feedline + balun loss is 0.4dB. There are simple
solutions out there, and feedline doesn't come cheaper than RG6 at US
$0.20/m here in Oz (but you need to be selective in choosing RG6 for this
purpose).

Owen