[TowerTalk] Better reading meters

[Mark Beckwith]

>May make you feel warm and fuzzy because a
>meter reads better than it used to but did
>it fix the root problem?

With all due respect to my esteemed buddy Jim, a better-reading meter is
also appreciated by my amplifier.  The way I look at it, if most of what I
squirt in the shack end of the hardline squirts out the other end, then the
SWR doesn't matter, and doubly so if you're as loud or as louder than
competitors and you work contest QSOs at a high rate.  Or crush pileups or
whatever.

Nothing against quarter-wave matching sections, but give me a good T-network
any day.

As for baluns, you still want to keep the outside of the feedline from being
part of the antenna.  I use large toroid sleeves which fit over the coax at
the feedpoint and I'm done for about half the cost of a cheap balun, or an
even smaller fraction of the cost of an expensive balun.

Mark, N5OT