On May 28, 1:22*pm, (Dieter Kiel) wrote:
wrote:

Hi,

I think you left out the losses in the balun. With a kilowatt even a
large (by ham standards) balun will get very warm if you leave the key
down... my guess is it's not quite as much as you're saving but
comparable. It all amounts to 10%, and that's such a tiny fraction of
a S-unit.

The other side probably wouldn`notice the difference.

Now, if your antenna were an incredible mismatch to coax to begin
with, then ladder line makes good sense. Say you want to use your same
inv-V on 40M, then you'd run ladder line all the way to your tuner and
be in fat city.

I would not take TV ladderline if you have a high standing wave ratio,
and this will happen if you use the dipol for multiband purpose.
I`ve tested a dipol with about 20 m length (67 ft) for 80m.
At first I got almost the same s-meter report compared with a W3DZZ trap
dipol. But after a couple of month I noticed that the received signal
was up to 20 db down compared with the trap dipol. I only used 100 watts
but it broke the TV ladder line. Here I`ve learned what has happened:

http://www.w8ji.com/vswr_reactive_power.htm

I`m planning to build a new antenna with self built ladderline for
multiband purposes for one of the traps of my W3DZZ is broken. I´ve only
bought the spacers for the new ladder line.

I have a 135-foot dipole fed with approx 100 feet of home-made ladder
line and am incredibly happy with its performance from 80M all the way
to 15M.

Much of the joy of the ladderline was not in buying the parts to make
it, but making it from stuff on hand. I had a sheet of 1/8"
polycarbonate that I cut into 4"x3/8" strips, then drilled and
notched, to put a spacer every foot using tie-wires. Others boil
wooden dowels in paraffin for the spacers (the method recommended by
the 1930's ARRL Handbook). Seeing the ladderline go up 85 feet to the
middle of the dipole is a pure joy!

Tim N3QE