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[TowerTalk] Tuning coax stubs w/ shack test equipment

To: <towertalk@contesting.com>
Subject: [TowerTalk] Tuning coax stubs w/ shack test equipment
From: k6ll@juno.com (k6ll@juno.com)
Date: Mon, 29 Mar 1999 22:13:17 -0700


On Mon, 29 Mar 1999 18:36:15 -0800 Steve Gehring / KL7DC
<gehring@alaska.net> writes:

> I grabbed an "odd" piece of coax (128 inches of 
>cheap
>RG-11) from the shack closet and connected it to my Autek RF-1.  For 
>the
>open stub test, the impedance bottomed out at 15.05 MHz with 7 ohms, 
>and
>only rose to 13 ohms at 14.05 MHz, or 1 MHz lower.....

> Now, my Autek worked fine for this 
>application,
>and made finding the center of that low Q, broad notch and/or 
>passband
>rather uneventful.  I've never used an MFJ, but would guess the SWR 
>would
>peak during the stub's electrical shorts and opens.  I feel they are a 
>good
>way to check your work, especially with possibility of length
>miscalculations and varying velocity factors, etc.  

I didn't see the original posting on this, but something is wrong
here. A 10' stub made out of rg-8 or rg-11 should have an impedance
minimum of about 0.5 ohm. I just tested my 40m shorted stub, made out
of rg-8, and it read 0 ohms from 14.0 to 14.7 Mhz on the Autek
meter. This is a false reading, though, because of the "diode
suck-out" problem discussed in the Autek manual for very low impedance
measurements. 

I still think the best way to tune a stub is to
beg, borrow, steal or buy a grid dip meter, temporarily connect a
1 inch piece of wire from the pin to shell of the stub's pl-259,
and couple the gdo into the small square loop formed by the little
wire, the pin, and the shell of the pl-259.

Dave Hachadorian, K6LL
Yuma, AZ
K6LL@juno.com





















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