[Amps] OT: Relay questions

[Vic Rosenthal]

John [ N5BSD ] wrote:

> I am attempting to locate sealed or enclosed coax relays
> To try and build a switching system for my station

I built an antenna switch using open frame relays.  It is in a metal box and 
uses copper strap for connections.  It works quite well at 1.5 KW on HF.  I 
connected an accurate dummy load  (I used an Ethernet terminator) to the output 
and an antenna analyzer to the input to check the SWR and found that it was flat 
up to 10 MHz, increasing slightly on the higher bands.  I found that adding a 
very small capacitor from the relay bus to ground (in my case, 8 pf) reduced the 
SWR on 28 MHz to an almost unmeasurable value.

I would definitely recommend this approach, as it is much cheaper and simpler 
than using coaxial relays!

-- 
73,
Vic, K2VCO
Fresno CA
http://www.qsl.net/k2vco