[TenTec] 450 ohm ladder line/ten tec tuner

[Rob Atkinson, K5UJ]

To get my open wire feed into my basement I bashed out a window pane that 
measured around 5 x 6 inches, got a same sized piece of plexiglass, drilled 
two holes in it 3" apart in the center, and put in banana plug sockets in 
the holes.  I put banana plugs on the antenna end of the feedline, and 
soldered a short length of open wire feed to the inside ends of the sockets 
then with the plexiglass in the window, placed my feedline transmatch in 
front of the window and hooked the 1' length of feed to that and ran 8U 1318 
coax from the transmatch to the shack (about 15') and plugged the antenna 
feedline in outside.  I also had to run a short ground strap from the 
transmatch, around the window frame and outside to a rod to ground the 
transmatch.  The banana sockets allow quick disconnect outside.  I have been 
informed by other hams that this method was feasible only because I'm not 
married, hi.  This keeps the transmatch indoors where it is easy to get to 
and tune, but minimizes the length of open wire feed inside.

What you do depends partly on how much power you are going to run.  You can 
get away with more if you are running qrp.  If you want to run several 
hundred watts or more, I highly recommend a method that keeps the open wire 
feed away from the shack and places the balun between the transmitter and 
the transmatch, i.e. use a transmatch designed for balanced feedline so a 
1:1 balun can be used on the low impedence side where it can do its balun 
work with nice matches to look at and the transmatch itself is balanced and 
needs no balun on the hi Z open wire side.

Rob Atkinson
K5UJ

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