To get my open wire feed into my basement I bashed out a window pane that
measured around 5 x 6 inches, got a same sized piece of plexiglass, drilled
two holes in it 3" apart in the center, and put in banana plug sockets in
the holes. I put banana plugs on the antenna end of the feedline, and
soldered a short length of open wire feed to the inside ends of the sockets
then with the plexiglass in the window, placed my feedline transmatch in
front of the window and hooked the 1' length of feed to that and ran 8U 1318
coax from the transmatch to the shack (about 15') and plugged the antenna
feedline in outside. I also had to run a short ground strap from the
transmatch, around the window frame and outside to a rod to ground the
transmatch. The banana sockets allow quick disconnect outside. I have been
informed by other hams that this method was feasible only because I'm not
married, hi. This keeps the transmatch indoors where it is easy to get to
and tune, but minimizes the length of open wire feed inside.
What you do depends partly on how much power you are going to run. You can
get away with more if you are running qrp. If you want to run several
hundred watts or more, I highly recommend a method that keeps the open wire
feed away from the shack and places the balun between the transmitter and
the transmatch, i.e. use a transmatch designed for balanced feedline so a
1:1 balun can be used on the low impedence side where it can do its balun
work with nice matches to look at and the transmatch itself is balanced and
needs no balun on the hi Z open wire side.
Rob Atkinson
K5UJ
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