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Re: [RFI] Common mode choke on 4 Square feedlines without skewing phasin

To: rfi@contesting.com
Subject: Re: [RFI] Common mode choke on 4 Square feedlines without skewing phasing?
From: Jim Brown <jim@audiosystemsgroup.com>
Reply-to: jim@audiosystemsgroup.com
Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2019 12:45:53 -0800
List-post: <mailto:rfi@contesting.com>
On 1/23/2019 5:10 AM, Dave Cole (NK7Z) wrote:
If you are using the DX Engineering box shown at:
https://static.dxengineering.com/global/images/instructions/dxe-tfs4-80b-p.pdf

Looking at the instructions, I see that the cables to the individual antennas are RG11, so a 50 ohm choke would likely disturb the match, and thus the phasing. A possible solution would be to wind the chokes with a 75 ohm coax.

My measured data is for RG400, which has a PTFE jacket, and RG400 was chosen because it has a stranded copper center to accommodate the tight bend radius. The fly in the ointment is that resonance in the choke depends somewhat on the diectric properties of the outer jacket. The good news is that on 80M, the circuit Q of the choke resonance is low enough that guidelines for RG400 would likely be "close enough" for a good 0.195" 75 ohm cable like LMR200-75, which specs a minimum bend radius of 0.5-in. That would NOT be true for 160M, where the circuit Q is much higher, and the resonance much narrower.

Taking all of this into consideration, I would suggest a choke wound with 19 turns of LMR-200-75 on the big 4-in o.d. toroids. That works out to be about 6.5-ft by the time connectors are added (measure as you build the chokes). LMR-200-75 has VF of 0.83; if the RG11 you're using also has a foam dielectric, the cables would be shortened by the same length as what you're adding with the choke.

73, Jim K9YC


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