"Dale Parfitt" wrote in message
news:25Krd.8148$1z5.1438@trnddc06...

"



Thanks for the quick response, Mike!

65 feet of coax between the radio (DX-402/ATS-505) and the
antenna
(200 feet
of 300 ohm twin-lead hidden along the ridge on the roof of the
house.) And
I don't think I would call it "severely" degraded, only slightly
so.
Only a
little less than the old "temporary" antenna (60 feet of four
strand
copper
wire thrown over the house.) Also, the new antenna is oriented
primarily E/W
while the "temporary" antenna was oriented primarily N/S, if
that
matters.

The orientation does matter if you're not using a vertical,
but the first thing that popped into my mind was overloading
the ATS-505 with 200 feet of antenna wire. The longest
I've ever run into my old DX-440/ATS-803A was about
40-50 feet, and while I never overloaded it, I've never
tried anything close to 200 feet into it.


But yeah, the E/W orientation will work well for stations
that are north or south of you (like tropical band stuff),
but not so good for hearing things east or west of you
(like from Europe or Africa or -depending on where
you're at- relays like Sackville).

Unless the antenna is a approx. 1/2 wavelength up or higher ( at
tropical
band= 150' or so) the end nulls fill in making even horizontal
antennas near
omni.

Okay, granted. I was thinking the location of the
stations in the tropical bands, as in Latin America,
versus overseas. But yes, I do stand corrected.

--Mike L.

"Michael Lawson" wrote in message
...

"Dave" wrote in message
...

"Dale Parfitt" wrote in message
news:25Krd.8148$1z5.1438@trnddc06...

"



Thanks for the quick response, Mike!

65 feet of coax between the radio (DX-402/ATS-505) and the
antenna
(200 feet
of 300 ohm twin-lead hidden along the ridge on the roof of the
house.) And
I don't think I would call it "severely" degraded, only
slightly so.
Only a
little less than the old "temporary" antenna (60 feet of four
strand
copper
wire thrown over the house.) Also, the new antenna is oriented
primarily E/W
while the "temporary" antenna was oriented primarily N/S, if
that
matters.

The orientation does matter if you're not using a vertical,
but the first thing that popped into my mind was overloading
the ATS-505 with 200 feet of antenna wire. The longest
I've ever run into my old DX-440/ATS-803A was about
40-50 feet, and while I never overloaded it, I've never
tried anything close to 200 feet into it.


But yeah, the E/W orientation will work well for stations
that are north or south of you (like tropical band stuff),
but not so good for hearing things east or west of you
(like from Europe or Africa or -depending on where
you're at- relays like Sackville).

Unless the antenna is a approx. 1/2 wavelength up or higher ( at
tropical
band= 150' or so) the end nulls fill in making even horizontal
antennas
near
omni.

Guess my question is, how are you connecting the twin lead- if
simply
connecting it to the balun, you have little more than a 300 Ohm
transmission
line, not an antenna.
In fact, if the baluns were perfectly balanced, and the twin lead
clear of
metallic objects ( which would unbalance it) you would
theoretically get
zero signal.
Dale W4OP



Hey Dale, thanks for jumping in.

Well, get the calculator out. The two freqs of interest to me are
9335 KHz
and 11710 KHz, so I am going to work with something between those
two
numbers (10 MHz). If I am correct, 10 Mhz has a wavelength of 30
meters,
which works out to about 98 feet. And I am working with 200 feet.
(Maybe I
should call this a long-wire antenna?) Question for you: what is an
end
null?

And yes, I simply connected the 300-ohm to the baluns to the coax,
to
another balun, and then a third that plugs into my external antenna
socket.
And I a definetly getting a signal. Whatcha think?

Are you using the 300 ohm balanced as a twin lead folded
dipole or as an equivalent of a longwire?? If you're using it
as a longwire and have hooked up a 300/75 balun to it,
Dale's right and it's effectively a long transmission line.

I'm with Ace on this, I don't understand the 2nd and 3rd baluns.

--Mike L.

I am using it as a longwire. What is a "transmission line" and how does it
differ from a recieving antenna?

The second and third baluns are to allow me to plug it into my external
antenna connector. The first (attached to he coax) makes it possible to
carry the received signal to the second (with the mini-plug on it.) I am
using this with a small portable radio.

Dave

"Dave" wrote in message
...

"Dale Parfitt" wrote in message
news:25Krd.8148$1z5.1438@trnddc06...

"



Thanks for the quick response, Mike!

65 feet of coax between the radio (DX-402/ATS-505) and the
antenna
(200 feet
of 300 ohm twin-lead hidden along the ridge on the roof of the
house.) And
I don't think I would call it "severely" degraded, only
slightly so.
Only a
little less than the old "temporary" antenna (60 feet of four
strand
copper
wire thrown over the house.) Also, the new antenna is oriented
primarily E/W
while the "temporary" antenna was oriented primarily N/S, if
that
matters.

The orientation does matter if you're not using a vertical,
but the first thing that popped into my mind was overloading
the ATS-505 with 200 feet of antenna wire. The longest
I've ever run into my old DX-440/ATS-803A was about
40-50 feet, and while I never overloaded it, I've never
tried anything close to 200 feet into it.


But yeah, the E/W orientation will work well for stations
that are north or south of you (like tropical band stuff),
but not so good for hearing things east or west of you
(like from Europe or Africa or -depending on where
you're at- relays like Sackville).

Unless the antenna is a approx. 1/2 wavelength up or higher ( at
tropical
band= 150' or so) the end nulls fill in making even horizontal
antennas
near
omni.

Guess my question is, how are you connecting the twin lead- if
simply
connecting it to the balun, you have little more than a 300 Ohm
transmission
line, not an antenna.
In fact, if the baluns were perfectly balanced, and the twin lead
clear of
metallic objects ( which would unbalance it) you would
theoretically get
zero signal.
Dale W4OP



Hey Dale, thanks for jumping in.

Well, get the calculator out. The two freqs of interest to me are
9335 KHz
and 11710 KHz, so I am going to work with something between those
two
numbers (10 MHz). If I am correct, 10 Mhz has a wavelength of 30
meters,
which works out to about 98 feet. And I am working with 200 feet.
(Maybe I
should call this a long-wire antenna?) Question for you: what is an
end
null?

And yes, I simply connected the 300-ohm to the baluns to the coax,
to
another balun, and then a third that plugs into my external antenna
socket.
And I a definetly getting a signal. Whatcha think?

Are you using the 300 ohm balanced as a twin lead folded
dipole or as an equivalent of a longwire?? If you're using it
as a longwire and have hooked up a 300/75 balun to it,
Dale's right and it's effectively a long transmission line.

I'm with Ace on this, I don't understand the 2nd and 3rd baluns.

--Mike L.

Gotta run for now. Hope to pick up on this later...

Thanks all.

Dave

"Dave" wrote in message
...
I recently installed a makeshift antenna on my roof similar to the
"temporary" one I have been using for a couple of years, but its
performance
is severely degraded (not quite as good as my whip antenna, by itself).
Now
I think I have found the problem, but want to check with those on the
group
to confirm my suspicions. I used RG59 coax in combination with 300-ohm/50
ohm baluns, but now find a source of information that says RG59 is 75-ohm,
not 52 ohm like the guy at the parts depot told me. Which do I believe?
The (young) guy who cut the cable for me, or the book on RF design that
some
people says is full of mistakes? What is the actual impedance of RG59
coax?

Thanks for any help...

Dave

Dave wrote:

"dxAce" wrote in message
...


Dave wrote:

"Dale Parfitt" wrote in message
news:25Krd.8148$1z5.1438@trnddc06...

"



Thanks for the quick response, Mike!

65 feet of coax between the radio (DX-402/ATS-505) and the antenna
(200 feet
of 300 ohm twin-lead hidden along the ridge on the roof of the
house.) And
I don't think I would call it "severely" degraded, only slightly
so.
Only a
little less than the old "temporary" antenna (60 feet of four
strand
copper
wire thrown over the house.) Also, the new antenna is oriented
primarily E/W
while the "temporary" antenna was oriented primarily N/S, if that
matters.

The orientation does matter if you're not using a vertical,
but the first thing that popped into my mind was overloading
the ATS-505 with 200 feet of antenna wire. The longest
I've ever run into my old DX-440/ATS-803A was about
40-50 feet, and while I never overloaded it, I've never
tried anything close to 200 feet into it.


But yeah, the E/W orientation will work well for stations
that are north or south of you (like tropical band stuff),
but not so good for hearing things east or west of you
(like from Europe or Africa or -depending on where
you're at- relays like Sackville).

Unless the antenna is a approx. 1/2 wavelength up or higher ( at
tropical
band= 150' or so) the end nulls fill in making even horizontal
antennas
near
omni.

Guess my question is, how are you connecting the twin lead- if simply
connecting it to the balun, you have little more than a 300 Ohm
transmission
line, not an antenna.
In fact, if the baluns were perfectly balanced, and the twin lead
clear of
metallic objects ( which would unbalance it) you would theoretically
get
zero signal.
Dale W4OP



Hey Dale, thanks for jumping in.

Well, get the calculator out. The two freqs of interest to me are 9335
KHz
and 11710 KHz, so I am going to work with something between those two
numbers (10 MHz). If I am correct, 10 Mhz has a wavelength of 30
meters,
which works out to about 98 feet. And I am working with 200 feet.
(Maybe I
should call this a long-wire antenna?) Question for you: what is an end
null?

And yes, I simply connected the 300-ohm to the baluns to the coax, to
another balun, and then a third that plugs into my external antenna
socket.
And I a definetly getting a signal. Whatcha think?

300 ohm to the baluns?, then to the coax, to another balun? then to a
third
balun?

I'm going hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

dxAce
Michigan
USA


And what are you thinking, while going hmmmmmmm... I don't have your
experience.

Just wondering about the two other baluns. I can understand one, but not the
other two.

I'm gonna let Dale handle this one!

Take it away, Dale!

dxAce
Michigan
USA

I am not trying to act smart or anything because I really am a dummy but
that is sort of what I was thinking too.Too many balun's.Sort of like
having two or more anti virus programs in a computer,they are like two
fleas arguring over which one owns the dogs belly.
cuhulin

wrote in message
...
I am not trying to act smart or anything because I really am a dummy but
that is sort of what I was thinking too.Too many balun's.Sort of like
having two or more anti virus programs in a computer,they are like two
fleas arguring over which one owns the dogs belly.
cuhulin


Well, the idea is that one connects to the coax and the other connects to
the radio, and in the middle each connects to the other. I have no other
way of connecting the coax to my radio, from what I can tell.

Thanks for the input.

Dave

On Thu, 2 Dec 2004 14:08:25 -0600, "Dave" wrote:


"Michael Lawson" wrote in message
. ..

"Dave" wrote in message
...

"Dale Parfitt" wrote in message
news:25Krd.8148$1z5.1438@trnddc06...

"



Thanks for the quick response, Mike!

65 feet of coax between the radio (DX-402/ATS-505) and the
antenna
(200 feet
of 300 ohm twin-lead hidden along the ridge on the roof of the
house.) And
I don't think I would call it "severely" degraded, only
slightly so.
Only a
little less than the old "temporary" antenna (60 feet of four
strand
copper
wire thrown over the house.) Also, the new antenna is oriented
primarily E/W
while the "temporary" antenna was oriented primarily N/S, if
that
matters.

The orientation does matter if you're not using a vertical,
but the first thing that popped into my mind was overloading
the ATS-505 with 200 feet of antenna wire. The longest
I've ever run into my old DX-440/ATS-803A was about
40-50 feet, and while I never overloaded it, I've never
tried anything close to 200 feet into it.


But yeah, the E/W orientation will work well for stations
that are north or south of you (like tropical band stuff),
but not so good for hearing things east or west of you
(like from Europe or Africa or -depending on where
you're at- relays like Sackville).

Unless the antenna is a approx. 1/2 wavelength up or higher ( at
tropical
band= 150' or so) the end nulls fill in making even horizontal
antennas
near
omni.

Guess my question is, how are you connecting the twin lead- if
simply
connecting it to the balun, you have little more than a 300 Ohm
transmission
line, not an antenna.
In fact, if the baluns were perfectly balanced, and the twin lead
clear of
metallic objects ( which would unbalance it) you would
theoretically get
zero signal.
Dale W4OP



Hey Dale, thanks for jumping in.

Well, get the calculator out. The two freqs of interest to me are
9335 KHz
and 11710 KHz, so I am going to work with something between those
two
numbers (10 MHz). If I am correct, 10 Mhz has a wavelength of 30
meters,
which works out to about 98 feet. And I am working with 200 feet.
(Maybe I
should call this a long-wire antenna?) Question for you: what is an
end
null?

And yes, I simply connected the 300-ohm to the baluns to the coax,
to
another balun, and then a third that plugs into my external antenna
socket.
And I a definetly getting a signal. Whatcha think?

Are you using the 300 ohm balanced as a twin lead folded
dipole or as an equivalent of a longwire?? If you're using it
as a longwire and have hooked up a 300/75 balun to it,
Dale's right and it's effectively a long transmission line.

I'm with Ace on this, I don't understand the 2nd and 3rd baluns.

--Mike L.

I am using it as a longwire. What is a "transmission line" and how does it
differ from a recieving antenna?

The second and third baluns are to allow me to plug it into my external
antenna connector. The first (attached to he coax) makes it possible to
carry the received signal to the second (with the mini-plug on it.) I am
using this with a small portable radio.

Dave


Dave,
Two too many baluns and the 300 ohm cable is not being used to it's
best advantage. Suggest the following:
1) use the 30 ohm cable to make a folded dipole, at each end connect
the two wire, then in the middle of the length cut the bottom wire and
strip some insulation from each lead.
2) Connect the balun to the two leads of the folded dipole.
3) Connect the 75 ohm coax to the balun, hook the shield to ground and
route into the house.
4) Get an "F" to 1/8 phone plug adapter, Radio Shack carries them.
Attach the 75 ohm cable to the adapter & plug into your radio.
5) Turn radio on and expect better performance than you now have.

You may wish to consider that a dipole is a resonant antenna and a 200
foot dipole is going to be resonant at a little over 2 MHz. Though to
be realistic, you should be more concerned about signal overload than
resonance. A consideration is to whack about 50 feet from each end of
the cable to give a 100 ft folded dipole.

I suspect you are using a stock 300/75 ohm balun as used for TV
antennas: these do not function as well at HF as they do at higher
frequencies and that could well be stealing some signal from you.
Suggest you read the following article
http://www.anarc.org/naswa/badx/ante...e_antenna.html which
describes how to wind a balun using stock 300/75 ohm transformer - the
wind ratio of 30/10 is for a 9:1 balun so you could use a ratio of
10/5 which would give a 4:1 balun.

Good Luck!
Howard

"Dave" wrote
The second and third baluns are to allow me to plug it into my external
antenna connector. The first (attached to he coax) makes it possible to
carry the received signal to the second (with the mini-plug on it.) I am
using this with a small portable radio.

Dave, 300 ohm to 75 ohm RG-59 will work just fine for receiving, you should
be unable to tell the difference between that and 50 ohm coax. There is a
problem with adding multiple baluns, especially the cheap kind that previous
posters have warned you about. You could never need more than one balun, and
where receive-only is concerned, in most cases this simply allows easy
connection of coax to antenna - and little more. Well made current-type
baluns do provide both electrical isolation, a small amount of lightning
protection, and of course keep RF off the feedline when transmitting. I
don't understand why once you convert from antenna to coax - you ever
thought you needed another balun. Recommend eliminating the other two
upstream from the antenna-coax interface.

Jack

But yeah, the E/W orientation will work well for stations
that are north or south of you (like tropical band stuff),
but not so good for hearing things east or west of you
(like from Europe or Africa or -depending on where
you're at- relays like Sackville).

Unless the antenna is a approx. 1/2 wavelength up or higher ( at
tropical
band= 150' or so) the end nulls fill in making even horizontal
antennas
near
omni.

Guess my question is, how are you connecting the twin lead- if
simply
connecting it to the balun, you have little more than a 300 Ohm
transmission
line, not an antenna.
In fact, if the baluns were perfectly balanced, and the twin lead
clear of
metallic objects ( which would unbalance it) you would
theoretically
get
zero signal.
Dale W4OP



Hey Dale, thanks for jumping in.

Well, get the calculator out. The two freqs of interest to me are
9335
KHz
and 11710 KHz, so I am going to work with something between those
two
numbers (10 MHz). If I am correct, 10 Mhz has a wavelength of 30
meters,
which works out to about 98 feet. And I am working with 200 feet.
(Maybe I
should call this a long-wire antenna?) Question for you: what is an
end
null?

And yes, I simply connected the 300-ohm to the baluns to the coax,
to
another balun, and then a third that plugs into my external antenna
socket.
And I a definetly getting a signal. Whatcha think?

300 ohm to the baluns?, then to the coax, to another balun? then to a
third
balun?

I'm going hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

dxAce
Michigan
USA


And what are you thinking, while going hmmmmmmm... I don't have
your
experience.

Just wondering about the two other baluns. I can understand one, but not
the
other two.

I'm gonna let Dale handle this one!

Take it away, Dale!

dxAce
Michigan
USA

As above, If the baluns were perfect and the twin lead a fair distance
from unbalancing metal etc. you would get NO signal. The fact you are
getting some signal is due to the imperfect baluns. Get rid of the twin
lead- it's acting as a transmission line not an antenna. Or at the very
least connect both sides of the twin lead to one side of the balun and run a
ground wire (as short as possible) to the other side of the balun- instead
of the classic 9:1 balun, you'll have a 4:1 but it will work.

Dale W4OP