Feeding a Dipole
 

I remember participating in Field Day a number of years ago where we put up
a dipole and fed it with ladder line. That antenna worked great on 40, 20,
15, and 10 meters. A balun was atached between the end of the ladder line
and rig. I want to do this again but am not sure what type of balun and
ladder line to use. My dipole is cut for 40 meters (about 65 feet long, end
to end). Should I use a 4:1 or 1:1 balun? What impedance ladder line?

regards,

Steve KD6EUT

"Stephen Saunders" wrote:
I remember participating in Field Day a number of years ago where we put up
a dipole and fed it with ladder line. That antenna worked great on 40, 20,
15, and 10 meters. A balun was atached between the end of the ladder line
and rig. I want to do this again but am not sure what type of balun and
ladder line to use. My dipole is cut for 40 meters (about 65 feet long, end
to end). Should I use a 4:1 or 1:1 balun? What impedance ladder line?

Sounds like they might have been using a G5RV antenna at the field day
site. A G5RV is a dipole-like antenna that uses a specific length of
ladder line feed.

Try a Google search on "G5RV Antenna" and you'll get plenty of hits.

A better approach would be to feed your 40m dipole with any length of
450-ohm ladder line, and use an antenna tuner and SWR meter. MFJ makes
some decent low-cost tuners. That kind of set-up will work great on
40, 20, 17, 15, 12, and 10 meters. I use a similar antenna system
based on a 135-foot dipole.

Art Harris N2AH

"Stephen Saunders" wrote:
I remember participating in Field Day a number of years ago where we put up
a dipole and fed it with ladder line. That antenna worked great on 40, 20,
15, and 10 meters. A balun was atached between the end of the ladder line
and rig. I want to do this again but am not sure what type of balun and
ladder line to use. My dipole is cut for 40 meters (about 65 feet long, end
to end). Should I use a 4:1 or 1:1 balun? What impedance ladder line?

Sounds like they might have been using a G5RV antenna at the field day
site. A G5RV is a dipole-like antenna that uses a specific length of
ladder line feed.

Try a Google search on "G5RV Antenna" and you'll get plenty of hits.

A better approach would be to feed your 40m dipole with any length of
450-ohm ladder line, and use an antenna tuner and SWR meter. MFJ makes
some decent low-cost tuners. That kind of set-up will work great on
40, 20, 17, 15, 12, and 10 meters. I use a similar antenna system
based on a 135-foot dipole.

Art Harris N2AH

and use an antenna tuner and SWR meter. MFJ makes

Just make sure the tuner you get accepts ladder line or balanced line.
A tuner that only works with coax wont really do much here.
And those tuners usually are expensive. I am using an MFJ-986 tuner with a 40
meter dipole and ladder line all the way to the tuner and it works very well on
40-10 and very good stateside on 80m. It tunes all those bands with no trouble.
This tuner has the roller inductor in it.
There are some good plans to build your own tuner around also.
73
Craig N0BSA

and use an antenna tuner and SWR meter. MFJ makes

Just make sure the tuner you get accepts ladder line or balanced line.
A tuner that only works with coax wont really do much here.
And those tuners usually are expensive. I am using an MFJ-986 tuner with a 40
meter dipole and ladder line all the way to the tuner and it works very well on
40-10 and very good stateside on 80m. It tunes all those bands with no trouble.
This tuner has the roller inductor in it.
There are some good plans to build your own tuner around also.
73
Craig N0BSA