slow-z wrote:
Been off the bands about 15yrs, and want to get back on! have forgotten
much. Can i feed a long wire antenna with a tuner that only has a
unbalanced output.

For transmitting purposes you will need to provide a good RF ground
at your tuner. This can be ground radials, good, or a ground rod, not
so good. The ground makes up the other (necessary half) of your long
wire antenna. A 1/4 wave counterpoise wire at the operating frequency
will provide a good? RF ground.
The unbalanced tuner should have the "long wire" connected to the
"hot" or rf output of the tuner, and the ground or common connected to
the RF ground.
Gary N4AST

Yes, but if the long wire is on the order of a half-wavelength, the
ground becomes a lot less critical.

Chuck, NT3G


wrote:
slow-z wrote:

Been off the bands about 15yrs, and want to get back on! have forgotten
much. Can i feed a long wire antenna with a tuner that only has a
unbalanced output.


For transmitting purposes you will need to provide a good RF ground
at your tuner. This can be ground radials, good, or a ground rod, not
so good. The ground makes up the other (necessary half) of your long
wire antenna. A 1/4 wave counterpoise wire at the operating frequency
will provide a good? RF ground.
The unbalanced tuner should have the "long wire" connected to the
"hot" or rf output of the tuner, and the ground or common connected to
the RF ground.
Gary N4AST

In article . net,
chuck wrote:

Yes, but if the long wire is on the order of a half-wavelength, the
ground becomes a lot less critical.

It becomes less critical in terms of the need to provide the "other
half" of the radiator.

However, if the long wire is roughly a half-wavelength long, its
feedpoint impedance is going to be rather high... possibly higher than
you can match with a typical "unbalanced" tuner intended for matching
coax-fed antennas.

And, if you do match it, you'll find a relatively high RF voltage
present on the portion of the wire inside the shack. This can lead to
"RF in the shack" problems, and you may need a really good RF ground
for the tuner and rig just to keep RF voltages on the equipment
chassis from being a problem.

--
Dave Platt AE6EO
Hosting the Jade Warrior home page: http://www.radagast.org/jade-warrior
I do _not_ wish to receive unsolicited commercial email, and I will
boycott any company which has the gall to send me such ads!

Nah, RF is good for burning off warts and such

Scott
N0EDV

Dave Platt wrote:

This can lead to
"RF in the shack" problems, and you may need a really good RF ground
for the tuner and rig just to keep RF voltages on the equipment
chassis from being a problem.

Been off the bands about 15yrs, and want to get back on! have forgotten
much. Can i feed a long wire antenna with a tuner that only has a
unbalanced output.

I have a remote tuner in my garage, about 100 feet from my shack. The
fluorescent lights flicker in the garage when I transmit with the amplifier
on. I suspect this means there are high voltages in the garage. It still
works. I us the metal interior of the garage for a ground. The steel sheets
that form the interior of the garage are wired together.

Michael W0EZI

"Scott" wrote in message
...
Nah, RF is good for burning off warts and such

Scott
N0EDV

Dave Platt wrote:

This can lead to
"RF in the shack" problems, and you may need a really good RF ground
for the tuner and rig just to keep RF voltages on the equipment
chassis from being a problem.