[TenTec] Orion Finished?

[ac5e at comcast.net]

Well, it seems to me that between those nice ground straps and the coax jumpers there are a lot of "one turn loops" that might well couple RF back to places it's neither wanted nor expected. 

And having had a "current balun" literally melt and begin to smolder,  I suspect I might be able to understand the reluctance to have one anywhere but the feedpoint of a Yagi. However, I also run a Titan 3, as well as a 425, on my Orion with no problems at all. Other than the fact that every update turns the keying loops off.   Annoying, to say the least!

My shack has a number of rig to amp and amp to tuner cables permanantly installed. Each has a ferrite current balun between the rig and the amp and another between the amp and the tuner.   During all the rig testing and amp swapping around here I noticed the effect some rigs have on some amp's tuning, and I don't like touchy amps. Neither do I particularly care for RF output backing down with low indicated SWR. 

So I put the baluns in and have had no trouble with them a'tall.  And since you are running open wire line a balun on the coax to the tuner should be cool enough not to overheat.  At least not at a legal power level. A ferrite balun would break up any pickup loops accidentally built into the system, and since it's only a few inches of low loss coax it won't eat up a lot of power either. 

Since my "interesting experience" with baluns I also use them either directly at the antenna or between the lightning arrestor and the shack. They seem to run cool, as indicated by an infrared thermometer, at either location . But putting that same current balun a half wave so down the coax from an antenna is asking for a fire.  As I found out one night.  I'm just glad the mess was strapped to a tower leg instead of to something that would ignite. 

Anyhow, that's my two kopecks on the subject

73  Pete Allen  AC5E

--
Never squat with your spurs on