Hey gang, i was working on my full wave horizontal 80 mtr loop and decided to add either an "ugly balun," or possibly a dx engineering 1:1 balun. The antenna is abt 275 ft long and is currently just fed directly with coax, and I use it for 10-80 operation with a tuner.

Obviously, i like the cost of building an ugly balun, but will it work as good as the 1:1 dx engineering balun? Thanks in advance.

73's de kb8viv

On Saturday, November 3, 2012 10:52:42 PM UTC-5, kb8viv wrote:
Obviously, i like the cost of building an ugly balun, but will it work
as good as the 1:1 dx engineering balun? Thanks in advance.

Here's some information: http://www.karinya.net/g3txq/chokes/

As you can see, there are none of the air-core baluns that work very well 80m-10m because they are narrow-banded. Note that 25 turns is not enough turns for 80m and too many turns for 10m. Compare the bandwidth of the ferrite toroid baluns to the bandwidth of the air-core baluns. (We might define that bandwidth as any color except red, i.e. any frequency where the choking impedance is greater than 1K ohms.)
--
73, Cecil, w5dxp.com

"W5DXP" wrote in message
...

On Saturday, November 3, 2012 10:52:42 PM UTC-5, kb8viv wrote:
Obviously, i like the cost of building an ugly balun, but will it work
as good as the 1:1 dx engineering balun? Thanks in advance.

# Here's some information: http://www.karinya.net/g3txq/chokes/

# As you can see, there are none of the air-core baluns that work very well
80m-10m because they are narrow-banded. Note that 25 turns is not enough
turns for 80m and too many turns for 10m. Compare the bandwidth of the
ferrite toroid baluns to the # bandwidth of the air-core baluns. (We might
define that bandwidth as any color except red, i.e. any frequency where the
choking impedance is greater than 1K ohms.)

Nice link.

Thanks for the reply. At this point I may just forego the balun all together and continue to just feed theloop with coax. Thanks again es 73's.

Kb8viv

On 11/4/2012 1:44 PM, kb8viv wrote:
Thanks for the reply. At this point I may just forego the balun all
together and continue to just feed theloop with coax. Thanks again es
73's.

Kb8viv





I have a 75 meter loop. I feed it with 600 ohm open wire ladder line. I
have experimented with coax and window line.

The 600 ohm ladder line is extremely low loss. This makes up for the
nasty mismatch on 75 meters. This scheme got me an antenna that works on
10, 15, and 20 with no tuner. The VSWR is less than 1.6:1 on the worst
spot on these bands.

I use this antenna mostly on 75 meters and it works very very well. For
some reason I cannot say, the side null of noise from town increased and
I got less noise on all bands switching from 450 ohm window line to open
wire ladder line. I cannot explain why this happened. It is very nice to
see a S0 noise reading on 20, 15, and 10. My 75 meter noise is still
between S2 and S3. However, that is quite a step up from what I had
originally.

I think the good match on the high bands is because the loop feed point
gets higher in impedance at the higher frequencies.

I checked my worst case losses with a calculator on the web. It is found
here http://www.kc9aop.net/HAM/antenna_fa...line_loss_calc

Mine calculated out to be about 1/2 db at 75 meters.

Michael

Hi Michael,

Tnx for the reply and info. At this point it works well, so I think I'll just run the coax with a few loops at the feedpoint and call it fit for service. Tnx agn es 73's.

Kb8viv

"kb8viv" wrote in message
...

Hey gang, i was working on my full wave horizontal 80 mtr loop and
decided to add either an "ugly balun," or possibly a dx engineering 1:1
balun. The antenna is abt 275 ft long and is currently just fed
directly with coax, and I use it for 10-80 operation with a tuner.

Obviously, i like the cost of building an ugly balun, but will it work
as good as the 1:1 dx engineering balun? Thanks in advance.

73's de kb8viv

I do not ever recall seeing it, but maybe two 'ugly baluns" could be used.
One with say 10 turns (or what ever) and then a few feet away another with
20 turns. One would be good for say 3 to 15 mhz and the other good for 15
to 30 mhz.

However by the time you use this much coax, the bead type choke may be
cheaper.

An interesting thought. I have not read anything that discussed it
before.
Perhaps both the W2DX choke and the ugly balun?

Or may be one is really enough?

On Mon, 5 Nov 2012 12:21:37 -0500, "Ralph Mowery"
wrote:


"kb8viv" wrote in message
...

Hey gang, i was working on my full wave horizontal 80 mtr loop and
decided to add either an "ugly balun," or possibly a dx engineering 1:1
balun. The antenna is abt 275 ft long and is currently just fed
directly with coax, and I use it for 10-80 operation with a tuner.

Obviously, i like the cost of building an ugly balun, but will it work
as good as the 1:1 dx engineering balun? Thanks in advance.

73's de kb8viv

I do not ever recall seeing it, but maybe two 'ugly baluns" could be used.
One with say 10 turns (or what ever) and then a few feet away another with
20 turns. One would be good for say 3 to 15 mhz and the other good for 15
to 30 mhz.

However by the time you use this much coax, the bead type choke may be
cheaper.

John Ferrell W8CCW

I don't have the answer to this one - too many non educated people who thinks that you can stick anything up in the air and hook up an antenna tuner and it will work or work properly - are just kidding themselves..

Buy yourself a resonant antenna and be done with it.

The antenna I use is a Barker & Williamson BWD 90 Folded dipole.
It works everywhere from 10 - 160 meters - WITHOUT A ANTENNA TUNER.

My other antenna is a off center fed dipole, does everything except 15 meters.
Does not require antenna tuner.

Antenna Tuners or trickers as I call them, does not make the antenna resonant, it just tricks the transmitter into thinking that it is putting it's power into a true 50 ohm load.

Hmm...$780? I don't think so, LOL.

"BDWS-65n 4 - 54 Mhz Folded Dipole, Stainless Steel, 65 Ft, N connector, 1 KW"

How can they ask $780 for this antenna? Am I missing something? I can't imagine this would outperform my loop, especially on the low bands.

Thanks for the recommendation, though.

kb8viv