I have a home buit version of the Carolina Windom. An off center fed
antenna about 120 feet long with a 4:1 voltage balun and from the feedpoint
it goes to an inline ferrite bead choke 20 feet from the feed point, then 80
feet of rg-8 to the shack.

The balun is suspose to be rated for 3 kw. It does have 2 cores in it.
By tests, I know if I run ssb at over 800 watts the balun will heat up and
change the swr.

I have noticed lately that running just 100 watts ssb on 80 meters the swr
seems to be going up to about 2:1 and the rig cuts the power back as
expected as I talk from a starting point of 1:1. That has hapened for the
last two mornings. I don't recall it doing that before. The antenna has
been up for several years. It is just over 1:1 when normal on the frequency
I most often operate on. Today in the afternoon when 80 meters was dead I
transmitted a carrier for about 5 minuits and let off to ID, then another
carrier for about 5 minuits and the swr did not change.

Any ideas why the swr went up for the last two mornings, but did not seem to
go up this afternoon ?





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Do you understand the difference between SWR and VSWR.
SWR is a Citizens Band Radio terminology that describes events on the feed line.
VSWR - Voltage Standing Wave Ratio refers to the voltage present.
If you increase the voltage, what happens to the SWR?
IT GOES UP!

For some reason you don't even know how to use speel check, yet you must think that you are some kind of antenna expert.

The permeability of the core of the balun is determined by it's quality.
It appears to me as if you are cheap and you bought the cheapest balun you could find, trying to save money.

If you do some research on the Carolina Windom antenna, you will read that if it's design frequency is 80 / 75m, that it will not work on 160 or 40m...

Even if it is designed for 80m, 80m is such a large band, you only get about 455 kc's of resonance, and everywhere else it is not resonant.

Had you bought a Guanella-balun and had this problem I would say that the Balun was bad. Because I do not know the origin of the balun you used, I can only make the same assumption.

I'm not quite sure, but I don't think that it is legal, according to the Part 97 to transmit a carrier without saying anything.

One other thing - as Columbo would say, the SWR meter does not indicate resonance, it only tells you what the feed line tells it. By changing the length of the coax you can make the antenna appear as being resonant or non resonant, even though the antenna may or may not be a perfect 50 ohm load.

Instead of taking down the antenna and looking at the components, you chose to visit this forum and ask us to look into our crystal ball for a solution to your problem.

There is no way for sure for us to know how the PL connectors were installed, the condition of the coax you used for a feed line, the condition of the coax you used to build the antenna and the soldered connectors in between each and every junction.

ONE guess would be that you have a intermittent loose connection and today it chose to work and tomorrow when it rains, snows, wind blows etc, it might not make contact and present a high swr as you put it.

Find someone with an antenna analyzer to diagnose your problem for you.

On 12/18/2014 2:12 PM, Channel Jumper wrote:
I'm not quite sure, but I don't think that it is legal, according to the
Part 97 to transmit a carrier without saying anything.

FCC demands that you must issue your call sign within the period
required after beginning your transmission as he did.

One other thing - as Columbo would say, the SWR meter does not indicate
resonance, it only tells you what the feed line tells it. By changing
the length of the coax you can make the antenna appear as being resonant
or non resonant, even though the antenna may or may not be a perfect 50
ohm load.

Your first sentence could be construed as accurate, depending on
accepted terminology. Your second sentence is inaccurate and is in
conflict with your first sentence.

Instead of taking down the antenna and looking at the components, you
chose to visit this forum and ask us to look into our crystal ball for a
solution to your problem.

I'm thinking you do not have such a crystal ball or you would have used
it show your superiority over everyone else here.

There is no way for sure for us to know how the PL connectors were
installed, the condition of the coax you used for a feed line, the
condition of the coax you used to build the antenna and the soldered
connectors in between each and every junction.

Who is "us"? You have someone sitting beside you? So, you want his
problem handed to you(and the person next to you) on a platter? You
don't really know how to help him, in other words.

ONE guess would be that you have a intermittent loose connection and
today it chose to work and tomorrow when it rains, snows, wind blows
etc, it might not make contact and present a high swr as you put it.

Perhaps, as you put it. Can you suggest some tests that might be helpful
for him? How would you suggest making tests or measurements that you
think could be problems?


Find someone with an antenna analyzer to diagnose your problem for you.


Oh yeah! And learn nothing in the process. You would be standing around
for weeks with an analyzer in your hands waiting for the first sign of
intermittent connections. Then what? Your measurements have already told
you have a problem. Forget that Channel Jumper non-ham idiot. You are
much more capable than him.

Try some more things and report back. Shake your feeder (you know what I
mean) and have someone watch your meter. Look at each end of both the
feeder and antenna to make sure you have no corrupted insulators or
limbs touching. With a digital ohmmeter, you can measure resistance
across the insulators (power off, of course). The idea is: can I find a
way to measure something using what tools I have to give me a lead to
the problem? Keep looking.

The group would love to help, I'm sure. There are lots of gurus here.

Good Luck!

In article ,
Channel Jumper wrote:

I'm not quite sure, but I don't think that it is legal, according to the
Part 97 to transmit a carrier without saying anything.

That is an over-generalization.

Part 97 does allow you to make brief one-way transmissions, for the
purpose of making adjustments to your station. Evaluating SWR or
adjusting a tuner would fall into this category.

The test transmission itself can be pretty much anything, as long as
it does not violate any other terms of Part 97 (i.e. no foul language,
no music, no interference with other stations on the frequency, and
transmitted in a frequency allowed by your license privileges).

A "blank" CW carrier need not violate any of these. And, in fact,
that's just what many modern radios transmit whenever you hit the "tune"
button to adjust the auto-tuner.

You're still required to identify yourself somehow (verbally or CW)
every ten minutes and at the end of the transmission. So, you do have
to "say something", but you don't have to do it as part of the test
carrier transmission itself... just do it when you're done, or after
ten minutes (whichever comes sooner).

On Thu, 18 Dec 2014 20:12:53 +0000, Channel Jumper
wrote:

I'm not quite sure, but I don't think that it is legal, according to the
Part 97 to transmit a carrier without saying anything.

Wrong.

Part 97.305(a)(b)
(a) Except as specified elsewhere in this part, an amateur
station may transmit a CW emission on any frequency authorized
to the control operator.

(b) A station may transmit a test emission on any frequency
authorized to the control operator for brief periods for
experimental purposes,...

http://www.hallikainen.org/FCC/FccRules/2013/97/305/index.php

Actually, you're half right. Much of what I hear on the air is
seriously lacking in content and only a little better than not saying
anything.

--
Jeff Liebermann
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

Sorry Jeff, but you just shot yourself in the foot!
If you transmit a dead carrier and you don't say anything you are in fact violating the Part 97! All you people did was reaffirm what I had already said. The sad fact is that we give out licenses like lolly pops at a barber shop with no real instruction involved and once a person gets a license they automatically think that they don't need to know the rules or anything that they learned to pass the exam to get the license.
Had we had real Elmer's when we gave out those licenses, we wouldn't have 90% of the garbage we hear today on the HF radio!

As far as amplifiers goes, yes I can see someone using a amplifier on 160 meters in the summertime, but the rest of the time, all they are doing is broadcasting - not really serving any purpose.
If the OP bought a commercial OCFD in the first place - he wouldn't have these problems.

The people that made comments about their OCFD out performing a center cut dipole for X frequency doesn't understand how a OCFD works.
If you have a 80m OCFD and you use it on 10 meters, it acts like a 8 wavelength long 10m dipole. You actually get a realization of GAIN from the OCFD when you use it on 40 or 20 or 10m...

Unfortunately in my book to realize gain you must give up something in one direction to improve your signal in another. So the term GAIN really isn't relevant here. Instead of using the term GAIN I should say improvement, because improvement would be a more relative term.

On Thursday, December 18, 2014 2:13:00 PM UTC-6, Channel Jumper wrote:

One other thing - as Columbo would say, the SWR meter does not indicate
resonance, it only tells you what the feed line tells it. By changing
the length of the coax you can make the antenna appear as being resonant
or non resonant, even though the antenna may or may not be a perfect 50
ohm load.

If changing the length of the coax makes large changes in the SWR,
that just shows you have poor decoupling from the antenna to the
feed line. Need a balun or choke, or a better balun or choke than
what is being used.
What you state is largely a CB radio wives tale, due to most of them
not properly decoupling the antenna from the line.

With proper decoupling, the length of the coax will have little
bearing on the SWR seen at the rig. It will be the same as what is
seen at the antenna input, minus any decrease in SWR due to coax
loss. IE: very high coax loss can make anything look good at the rig.

Thank You - you just said what I was trying to imply!
The reason I use the term CB radio is because most people gets their start on the Chicken Band and you don't have to have a lot of intelligence to use something that only takes place on less then 1 MC of bandwidth.
You can practically cut a piece of wire to a resonant length and throw it up in a tree and not even use a piece of coax and talk on all 40 channels on a CB radio without a tuner.

When you become a ham and you want to talk everywhere, you must learn a little about feed lines and antenna's and what works and what does not and what a antenna tuner really does and what it cannot do.

The most hilarious people to me are the ones that uses non resonant antenna's, an amplifier and a antenna tuner and just because their signal is loud and strong they think that they can overcome being resonant.
They end up talking to other LIDS with the same situation and the only people they can hear are those that are the loudest!

I have owned a G5RV that I bought at a hamfest 4 years ago that was only out of the bag once, and even then only for one week.
The first time I tried to operate on 40m with it 20' off the ground, which was as high as I could get it on poles placed on my lot - everyone on 40m told me to get the heck off the G5RV, which was incentive enough to find something better and quit fooling around with junk!

As far as me not being a ham - you have your opinions and I have mine!
10-4 Rodger Dodger, I'm gone!

On 12/19/2014 10:38 AM, Channel Jumper wrote:
'Jeff Liebermann[_2_ Wrote:
;832323']On Thu, 18 Dec 2014 20:12:53 +0000, Channel Jumper
wrote:
-
I'm not quite sure, but I don't think that it is legal, according to
the
Part 97 to transmit a carrier without saying anything.-

Wrong.

Part 97.305(a)(b)
(a) Except as specified elsewhere in this part, an amateur
station may transmit a CW emission on any frequency authorized
to the control operator.

UH - he wasn't transmitting a CW emission, he was throwing a dead
carrier - can you read?

(b) A station may transmit a test emission on any frequency
authorized to the control operator for brief periods for
experimental purposes,...
YES - Brief Periods! 10 minutes is not a brief period!

http://www.hallikainen.org/FCC/FccRu.../305/index.php

Actually, you're half right. Much of what I hear on the air is
seriously lacking in content and only a little better than not saying
anything.

--
Jeff Liebermann
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

Sorry Jeff, but you just shot yourself in the foot!
If you transmit a dead carrier and you don't say anything you are in
fact violating the Part 97!

Please link to the FCC Rules and Regulations that specify such. Thanks.