[TowerTalk] BN-86

[AA6DX]

Hmmm .. not a balun fan in the first place, but .. have a BN-86 up on my "tower" ... RadShk chimney-mounted mast -- been up 12+ years now, used 1Ø/15/2Ø//4Ø perverted vees for "guywires" -- had just fixed a BN-86 for whatever reason, and just clamped it to the mast "because it was there" ... fed it with 4-1ØØØ, SB-22Ø, etc... mostly barefoot, though ... has made THOUSANDS of contacts, and still worky worky.   The clue to those aminals is this.  They "desolder" themselves.... I put turns of small wire around the funky connections at the end of the 14 gauge coils around the ferrite core, twisting the ends, making a good mechanical connection.  THEN soldered the connection. 
End of that problem!  Have had problems in the past, frying those critters, though .. when in the wee hours of contest, forgetting to turn the aerial switch, Henry would give it a shot, and ... kablooooey!   Again .. only reason that balooooon up there is it was handy, and my helper (no-ham brother) was impatient for me to do the job... been there all these years!   My 75/8Øm dipole has no such fuse. By the way, the same method of tying copper wire round and round fixed my problem with Daiwa 4 position co-ax switches, too .. if stressed by RG-213, 214, 8 .. they tend to become unglued at the SO-239.  73, Mark
AA6DX