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[TowerTalk] RF Choke for 40M dipole

To: Dan Maguire via TowerTalk <towertalk@contesting.com>
Subject: [TowerTalk] RF Choke for 40M dipole
From: Dave Sublette <k4to@arrl.net>
Date: Mon, 25 Sep 2017 10:10:46 -0400
List-post: <mailto:towertalk@contesting.com>
Good morning all,

Saturday, with N4TY on the tower and me on the ground,  we got my Rohn 55 
topped off at 155 feet.  All is looking good.  I took a little time last night 
on the bench and put connectors on the 2 section RF choke using the “unknown 
coax” and two pairs of “unknown" Ferrite beads.  Using a very good quality 
dummy load, the assembly showed 1:1 SWR to over 100 MHz using my Comet CA-500 
antenna analyzer.  

For the next test I carried it in to the shack and hooked it to my faithful 
Heath Cantenna and powered up the KX3/KXPA100.  I sent dahs for a long time 
with 100 watts going through the choke.  It didn’t get warm at all.  The 
reflected power was much less than .05 watt on the 5 watt scale of my Diamond 
SX-1000 wattmeter.

I’m thinking this thing is ready to put up as soon as I enclose it with a 
section of PVC pipe.

To review — I measured the common mode impedance at over 1500 ohms from 6-8 MHz 
on my MFJ 269.  Now I don’t know the mix on the ferrite cores, so there might 
be some loss there.  An email I received during the previous discussion claimed 
that type 43 was better than type 31 at 40m.  KF7P had an excellent set of data 
on his website that shows the type 31 is better.  I believe I will order some 
type 31 cores.  In the meantime, I’m comfortable with this present choke.

Is there anything else I should know before I put this thing up?  I won’t mind 
changing it.  Climbing is good exercise :-)

This has been a fun project and I feel I have learned/relearned some good 
things here.  Thanks for your participation.

73,

Dave, K4TO

 
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