"Kenneth Scharf" wrote in message
...
For the most part I will be using coax fed antennas.

There is an idea I've been thinking about and I wonder if it will work.
There is a myth that high SWR on coax will produce a high line loss. Most
of the loss involved with having a high SWR is in the coupling to the
receiver / transmitter, not so much in the transmission line itself, at
least not at HF. So long as a high voltage is no present on the
transmission line (arc over) or a very high current (resistive loss), and
the dielectric material does not introduce loss at the frequency involved
common 1/2" dia coax should work fine as an unbalanced feed line even at a
high swr ratio.


There is no myth that high swr can cause high loss, especially in coax.

It depends on how much loss the line has and how much the swr actually is.
If you only have a db or so of loss, then a 5:1 swr is not that much of an
issue. If you have a line loss of 2 or 3 db or more and then have a 5:1 swr
or higher, you can loose 3 db or more in the feedline in addition to the
actual loss in the feedline at a matched load

Below 440 there is very little loss in the dielectric, but mostly in the
center wire of the coax and then usually the shield. As the swr goes up,
the IR loss of the conductors goes up.

As far as the coupling loss to the transmitter, most modern transceivers are
set for a 50 ohm load and will cut the power back or not couple very well to
the transmission line. Even most of the built in tuners are only good for
about a 3:1 swr.