[TowerTalk] G5RV

[Dino Darling]

Hornets nest....yep!

I was told to REMOVE the balun (mine was a Van Gordon voltage balun) and 
hook the coax directly to the ladder line.  I instead cut my antenna at the 
center insulator and got rid of the coax/balun/twinlead and installed 450 
ohm ladder line directly to a tuner and each 51' leg.  It works MUCH better 
than the G5RV ever did!!!


(notice how I correctly TOP POSTED this reply (so you don't have to scroll 
through everything you have already read) and EDITED the footer to remove 
all the extra crap!  Everyone should try this in 2004!!!)


At 07:07 PM 01/03/2004 -0500, you wrote:
>All,
>
>I recently put up the G5RV that my wife purchased for me at 
>Christmas.  After putting it up and taking it down 4 times, I must confess 
>that I am at a loss.
>
>Some background:
>
>My property is large enough for a G5RV, but not for an 80 meter inverted 
>vee.  So I elected so ask "Santa wife" for the G5RV (one of the 
>premanufactured ones available at the local ham radio store).
>
>The antenna is supported by approximately 33' of mast at the center and 
>slopes down to approximately 11 feet at the ends.  (High enough to keep 
>the kids out of it.)  The ladder line is held away from the pole all the 
>way down approximately 5 or 6 inches with a couple of wooden standoffs 
>that I fabricated.  I also tried coiling about 7 or 8 - 6" turns of coax 
>at the feed point per a suggestion I saw on a web site although this 
>didn't seem to have any impact on the performance or SWR.  I also tried 
>changing the length of coax feeding the antenna, but still not difference.
>
>My concern is this, while I get a good SWR on 20 (about 1.5 at 14.200), I 
>am unable to make the antenna work on any other band without using a 
>tuner.  The SWR on any other band is at least 4:1 or higher.  I had a G5RV 
>about 20 years ago and seem to remember that it had a decent SWR on 80, 40 
>and 20.  I tried to play with the length of the wire, adding several 
>lengths to the ends, but still could not find a resonate point on any 
>other band.
>
>While I don't mind using a tuner, I am wondering if I am missing 
>something.  I verified all of the dimensions (102' of wire and 31' of 
>ladder line).
>
>Any idea?  I hope that I am not stirring up a hornets nest with this 
>question.
>
>Thanks in advance...
>
>KD8OK  -  Mike

Dino...k6rix at earthlink.net