On Thu, 09 Aug 2007 11:39:55 -0700, Richard Clark wrote:

I've seen discussion about cutting the length of this air-cooled
resistor (what do you mean almost exclusively receive? Use a 1/4 watt
resistor then!).

Because the one time I need to transmit on it, I'll blow the resistor.

You don't seem very committed to any particular "general" solution; so
what is your real goal?

I'm active in CAP and MARS on frequencies from 2 to 24 MHz. I need to be
able to program all of the frequencies of interest into my FT-1000 and put
it on scan, then if someone I need to talk to shows up (and is strong) on
one of the channels in my scan, I can just pick up the mike and call him.

I have two inverted vees fed with ladder line and tuners that I normally
use, but they're not suitable for scanning because one of the tuners is
manual and the other one can't keep up with scanning different channels
even if I had a computer interface for it so I could tell it what
frequency I'm listening on.

I could just throw out a random length wire, without a tuner, and use that
for receiving but I wouldn't be able to transmit on it when someone I need
to talk to shows up on one of the channels.

Hence, right now at least, the T2FD looks like the only viable short-term
solution for the scanner... a longer term solution will be an array of cut
dipoles whose fundamental or odd harmonic is near one of the frequencies
of interest, but that's going to be a while coming.