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Re: [TenTec] SLIGHTLY OT

To: tentec@contesting.com
Subject: Re: [TenTec] SLIGHTLY OT
From: "Dr. Gerald N. Johnson" <geraldj@weather.net>
Reply-to: geraldj@weather.net, Discussion of Ten-Tec Equipment <tentec@contesting.com>
Date: Fri, 08 Apr 2011 16:18:53 -0500
List-post: <tentec@contesting.com">mailto:tentec@contesting.com>
It will make a dandy multiband antenna if you can avoid having a quarter 
wave long feed line on 80 where the feed Z of the antenna is low and the 
feed end of the quarter wave line is very high. Like 450 * 450 / 70 = 
2892 ohms. And if you don't run 160 meters. If you can make that feed 
line near a half wave long on 80 its a quarter wave on 160, the 
transformation that raises high impedance feed problems. On all bands 
40m higher frequency the dipole impedance isn't low and the open wire 
line is the best feed.

On 4/8/2011 3:56 PM, Mike Bryce wrote:
> Okay...
>
> So what I just read from the link you sent, if I take and put up a center fed 
> Zepp with 66 feet on each side, fed with 450 open line and assume no loss 
> from the tuner or balun that antenna won't make a even halfway decent 
> multiband antenna?
>
>
> Mike
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
> On Apr 8, 2011, at 4:33 PM, Steve Hunt<steve@karinya.net>  wrote:
>
>> Mike,
>>
>> Yes, it's a very popular "Ham Myth" - not helped by various articles in QST.
>>
>> TLW is the software supplied by ARRL with the Antenna Book. It
>> calculates the losses and impedance transformations for various types of
>> feedline, given the load impedance. It typically underestimates losses,
>> and I would normally use the VK1OD on-line calculator in preference to
>> it, but that doesn't include a model for 600 Ohm line whereas TLW does.

ARRL also can't compute characteristic impedance of low impedance (under 
275 ohms or so) parallel lines correctly and refuses to admit it.
>>
>> Here are the calculated losses for various types of line - all 110ft
>> long and at 1.9MHz - when terminated in 11-j930 Ohms:
>>
>> TLW, ARRL "generic" 600 Ohm line: 2.6dB
>> VK1OD, Wireman 551 ladderline : 6dB
>> VK1OD, Wireman 551 ladderline (wet): 8.2dB
>>
>> Remember this is all at 160m !!!!
>>
>> If you'd like to know more, take a look at this review of the QST
>> article "The Lure of Ladder Line":
>> http://vk1od.net/transmissionline/LOLL/
>>
>> 73,
>> Steve G3TXQ
>>
The apparent low losses of parallel wire line come from the small 
currents of a matched load and neglect radiation from wide spacing. The 
losses go way up when the SWR is so high that currents get large at the 
low impedance points along the line. And if the software computing 
losses doesn't take the location of those high current points into 
account it will always give wrong answers because at the high impedance 
points the current is even smaller so the resistive losses are tiny. If 
it computes based only SWR and the line is only a quarter wave long the 
loss computation may be as accurate as picking a random number.

At 6m, 1" spaced open wire radiates quite a bit, even more at higher 
frequencies.
>>
>>
>> On 08/04/2011 20:58, Mike Bryce wrote:
>>> Don't shoot me!
>>>
>>> But I always read that open line feed was lossless.
>>>
>>> Mike
>>>
>>>
>>> Sent from my iPhone
>>>
>>> On Apr 8, 2011, at 3:42 PM, Steve Hunt<steve@karinya.net>   wrote:
>>>
>>
73, Jerry, K0CQ
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