[TenTec] Resonant antennas

[Jim Brown]

On Sat, 04 Sep 2004 20:14:51 -0400, Charles Greene wrote:

>You need a low loss feed line, like a open wire feed line for example. 

If the VSWR is below 4:1, RG-59 and RG-8X have very little loss below 28 MHz. 
IMO, the value of open wire line is HIGHLY over-rated.  There's an equation (and a 
graph of it) in the ARRL Handbook and Antenna Book that does a good job of 
dispelling the myth of excessive loss in lines having only moderate mismatch. The 
real issue is matching the line to the transmitter so that the protection circuitry 
doesn't throttle back the output stage. 
 
>Then you need a low loss antenna tuner, and you have to use it right.  

There's no good excuse for not having resonant antennas on Field Day, and if the 
antenna is reasonably close to resonant, almost any tuner will be fine. For all 
practical purposes, all operation on Field Day is confined to a pretty narrow 
segment of most bands on a percentage bandwidth basis (other 75 phone). How 
hard is it to hoist a dipole on some pulleys and lower it once or twice to tweak it to 
length?  IMO, the LDG auto tuner, the Elecraft auto tuners, and the Ten Tec tuners 
are all damn good. 


Jim Brown  K9YC