I'm mulling over different antenna designs for this spring / summer
and a friend of mine has suggested for 80m on up a full size 80 meter
"dipole" 66' X inches per leg, center fed with 300 Ohm twinlead. He
has this arrangement and the twinlead comes into his house and is
connected to two 10' sections of RG-8X both rolled into a coil about
6" in diameter. He then takes and connects the braid and shield of one
of the coax coils to one leg of the twindlead and I'm not exactly
certain how the other leg is connected. He claims it's a 4:1 coaxial
balun. I wonder if some of the experts here are familiar with this
type of arrangement. He claims it has lower losses than connecting it
to the 4:1 balun in his tuner. Any thoughts on the subject ?

Thanks in advance

73 Gary K8IQ

Remove extra @'s to reply directly

a friend of mine has suggested for 80m on up a full size 80 meter
"dipole" 66' X inches per leg, center fed with 300 Ohm twinlead

Hi Gary, A classical Zepp or Zepplin antenna is not center fed. I thought they
were end fed and hanging down from the airships of WW2.
If you have the room for a full sized 80m dipole, use 300 ohm or 450 ohm
ladder line with a choke balun (1:1 W2DU) and an antenna tuner. Will work
great on all HF bands. Don't mess with a 4:1 balun. Doesn't provide enough
benefit for this type of antenna.
The best "all band" antenna I have ever used was a 100' dipole, high as
possible, fed with ladder line and a tuner. Don't know if the 1:1 balun I used
did much.
73 Gary N4AST

On 05 Jan 2005 00:28:55 GMT, (JGBOYLES) wrote:

a friend of mine has suggested for 80m on up a full size 80 meter
"dipole" 66' X inches per leg, center fed with 300 Ohm twinlead

Hi Gary, A classical Zepp or Zepplin antenna is not center fed. I thought they
were end fed and hanging down from the airships of WW2.
If you have the room for a full sized 80m dipole, use 300 ohm or 450 ohm
ladder line with a choke balun (1:1 W2DU) and an antenna tuner. Will work
great on all HF bands. Don't mess with a 4:1 balun. Doesn't provide enough
benefit for this type of antenna.
The best "all band" antenna I have ever used was a 100' dipole, high as
possible, fed with ladder line and a tuner. Don't know if the 1:1 balun I used
did much.
73 Gary N4AST

Thanks Gary. I hadn't heard of a "center fed Zepp" before either and
your description of them being end fed and hanging down from airships
of WW2 correlates with what I'd heard.

73 Gary K8IQ

Gary wrote:
Thanks Gary. I hadn't heard of a "center fed Zepp" before either and
your description of them being end fed and hanging down from airships
of WW2 correlates with what I'd heard.

The Zepp is an end-fed 1/2WL antenna. The Double Zepp is a center-fed
one wavelength antenna. An Extended Zepp is a 5/8WL end fed antenna. An
Extended Double Zepp is a 10/8WL center-fed antenna.
--
73, Cecil http://www.qsl.net/w5dxp

On 5 Jan 2005 16:57:56 -0800, "Cecil Moore" wrote:

Gary wrote:
Thanks Gary. I hadn't heard of a "center fed Zepp" before either and
your description of them being end fed and hanging down from airships
of WW2 correlates with what I'd heard.

The Zepp is an end-fed 1/2WL antenna. The Double Zepp is a center-fed
one wavelength antenna. An Extended Zepp is a 5/8WL end fed antenna. An
Extended Double Zepp is a 10/8WL center-fed antenna.

Thanks Cecil and to all who responded, I think I'll just put up a
center fed dipole and feed it with twinlead or ladder line and then
use the 4:1 balun in my antenna tuner.

73 Gary

Gary wrote:
Thanks Cecil and to all who responded, I think I'll just put up a
center fed dipole and feed it with twinlead or ladder line and then
use the 4:1 balun in my antenna tuner.

That is a very popular configuration and works for a lot of hams. You
may need to change the length of the feedline for optimum operation.
Some ideas and information are available on my web page at
http://www.qsl.net/w5dxp/notuner.htm

One case where a 4:1 balun doesn't function well is on dipoles that are
less than 1/2WL long. For instance, the impedance looking into the
feedline for a 102 ft. dipole used on 80m may range down to 10 ohms. A
4:1 balun tries to take that 10 ohms down to 2.5 ohms. Antenna tuners
are inefficient when trying to match such low impedance values.
--
73, Cecil http://www.qsl.net/w5dxp

This is an excellent antenna that will serve you well over all HF
bands, including 6 meters. I use this antenna with good 300 ohm line
purchased from Davis RF, and a Radio Works Remote Current Balun. From
there I use about 4 feet or so of LMR400UF low loss coax to the rig.
The autotuner in my FT-920 will tune this antenna flat on most bands.
I do need to use an external tuner on 30 and 10 meters, but this is
easily acomplished by a 2 position coax switch. This system has
produced the best results of any setup I have had in 40+ years as a
Ham.
Unless you are real certain about the behavior of that coax balun, I
would invest in either a Radio Works, or DX Engineering balun of known
repute. Then get on the air and be amazed.
Jim/K2TL

" wrote:

The autotuner in my FT-920 will tune this antenna flat on most bands.
I do need to use an external tuner on 30 and 10 meters, but this is
easily acomplished by a 2 position coax switch.

Just wondered why you needed the coax switch. If you put the external tuner
between the FT920 and the antenna couldn't you just bypass the FT920 tuner and
switch in the external tuner for 30 and 10 and visa versa for the other bands?

I do this with 2 external tuners. I have an antenna with a similar situation to
yours. My TS870 will autotune ok on 40 thru 10 but not on 80 or 160. I just
daisy chained two external tuners (one pretuned to 160 and the other to 80)
between the TS870 and the balun feeding the open wire feedline. I simply switch
in the needed tuner and bypass the other two. Why *2* external tuners? It makes
for quick band hopping. You switch bands, hear em, push a few switches,
and work em...

Maybe I did not explain properly. I use a coax switch to select either
the FT-920 directly and thereby use the built in autotuner, or select
an external manual tuner when I bypass the internal autotuner. This
allows me to use either the built in autotuner, or the manual tuner,
depending on the band. Most of the time the autotuner is just fine
with the antenna I described. I don't understand why you thought I had
2 external tuners? Anyway, I hope this clears that up.

Jim/K2TL

" wrote:
Maybe I did not explain properly. I use a coax switch to select either
the FT-920 directly and thereby use the built in autotuner, or select
an external manual tuner when I bypass the internal autotuner. This
allows me to use either the built in autotuner, or the manual tuner,
depending on the band.

Again, you could do the same thing *without* using a coax switch. Simply run the
FT920 direct to your external tuner and the output of the external tuner to the
antenna. Use one tuner and put the other on bypass, or visa versa. This setup
will allow you to use either tuner (or no tuner) on any band.

I don't understand why you thought I had
2 external tuners?

Never thought you did. Try reading that part again.