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![]() According to my ARRL Antenna Handbook, the Windom Antenna was described by Loren Windom in QST in 1929. The design is a horizontal half wave (ie single band) fed by a vertical single wire feedline attached just off centre (~14%). Explanations go that this approximately matches the feedline Zo (which is quite high) with the horizontal wire. It is single wire (ie ultimately unbalanced) feedline and therefore radiates. The Antenna is fed between the source end of the feedline and ground, and the load impedance should be somewhere in the many hundreds of ohms. The feedline carries an appreciable net current. More recently, the Off Centre Fed (OCF) Dipole design emerged, principally as a multi-band antenna. The OCF Dipole is a horizontal wire with a coaxial feed and coupling transformer (often called a balun) attached offset from the centre of the dipole. The feedpoint excursions at a half wave length and harmonic frequencies are much lower than centre feeding, and may be operated as a multiband antenna with reasonable efficiency, though it probably really needs an ATU at the tx end of the coax. The OCF dipole feedline does have current flowing on the outer of the outer conductor, at least as a result of the assymetric coupling to the dipole legs, and to some extent because the ineffectiveness of practical coupling transformers to isolate the feedline ends from the differing voltages on each dipole leg. The feedline carries an appreciable net current. Then along came the Carolina Windom, which appears to be a OCF dipole with a proprietary (ie secret, undescribed) coupling transformer, a vertical coax section (feedline and radiator) and a proprietary (remember the meaning) "isolator" located at a given distance along the coax to prevent the current flowing on the outer of the outer of the coax from flowing further towards the transmitter. The isolater would appear to be a ferrite choke and it would introduce a series impedance (reactance and resistance) to current on the coax, so influencing the establishment of the standing wave pattern on the outer of the outer of the coax. You might naively think that this isolator prevents current flowing into the shack, but that is unlikely. In all these cases, there is an expectation that the feedline carries a net radiating current, and it seems to me, that if you don't want to bring that into the shack, you need to design an appropriate solution. In the case of the true Windom, it seems the easiest solution is to end the single wire feedline outside the shack and place a matching unit connecting to ground and the single wire feedline at that point, and transforming the load to something suitable to coax or balanced feedline to the shack. In the case of the OCF Dipole and the Carolina Windom, shunting the current on the outer of the outer to ground outside the shack is a potential solution. Series chokes might help, but the magnitude of the choking impedance is limited, and their effectiveness could be improved greatly by a low impedance shunt to ground. Comments? Owen PS: In todays paranoid world where rules in many jurisdictions restrict the maximum permitted exposure to electromagnetic radiation, antennas such as these with radiating elements that are close to areas accessible by people are a safety challenge. |
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