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Re: [RFI] Ladder Line and RFI/Noise

To: RFI List <rfi@contesting.com>
Subject: Re: [RFI] Ladder Line and RFI/Noise
From: dalej <dj2001x@comcast.net>
Date: Tue, 19 Oct 2010 15:27:48 -0500
List-post: <rfi@contesting.com">mailto:rfi@contesting.com>
I have 135 ft doublet fed with 100 ft of wide spaced open wire line to a 
Johnson KW match box.  I also have a 40 m. inverted V fed with 70 ft of 52 ohm 
coax and choke balun, both are suspended at the same point on my tower and 
oriented in the same direction.  I hear my neighbors light dimmer equally well 
with both antennas tuned to 40 meters.  I am not convinced that in my case, 
coax would work better than open wire feeders regarding the noise problem.

73
Dale, K9VUJ


On 19, Oct 2010, at 12:31, Jim Brown wrote:

>  On 10/19/2010 8:35 AM, Howard Lester wrote:
>> Gene right
>> off asked me if I was feeding my antenna with ladder line. I replied "Yes,
>> and it runs through the wall and connects directly to the transmatch on my
>> desk." He said that was the problem.
> 
> Yes. Folks have bought into the notion that ladder line is a cure for 
> all ills, that you can put up any wire and feed it with no problems. 
> Nothing could be further from the truth. The monster hole in this 
> approach is NOISE and RFI. The developers of telephone communications 
> learned more than a century ago that twisted pair was at rejecting noise 
> and crosstalk, and that parallel wires were bad.
> 
> Why this is true is pretty simple. Voltage is induced in both wires, and 
> if it is equal, the receiver will see zero voltage. But if the voltages 
> are slightly different, the receiver will see the difference. If the 
> noise source is relatively close, it will be closer to one conductor 
> than the other, so the voltage will be slightly different. With twisted 
> pair, one conductor will be closer at one point on the line and the 
> other will be closer a fractional inch down the line, so the induced 
> noise is much closer to zero, and the cancellation is more nearly perfect.
> 
> This discussion applies to differential coupling. There's also common 
> mode coupling, of course, and antennas fed with ladder line rarely have 
> a common mode choke. But they NEED a common mode choke, because nearly 
> all ham antennas have at least SOME unbalance by virtue of asymmetry in 
> their surroundings, their length, etc.  Yes, coax has more loss and it 
> costs more, but we can choke it, and there's no differential coupling at 
> proper connections.  And all of this works in reverse, of course, by 
> reciprocity, so ladder line puts more RF in your neighbor's A/V system 
> and computer speakers too.
> 
> 100 years later, we use parallel wires for speakers and power wiring. El 
> dumbo grande. Replacing them with twisted pair solves a LOT of noise and 
> RFI problems. And ladder line is a TERRIBLE idea if you have neighbors. 
> Or any noise generators in your home.
> 
> 73, Jim Brown K9YC
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