[TowerTalk] DX Engineering Wire Dipole Baluns Discontinued

[Jim Brown]

I called up to order several more of the DX Engineering dipole baluns 
yesterday to build some Field Day antennas. I was told that they are 
discontinued, and that as a "replacement," I can order a balun in an 
aluminum enclosure. The reason given for discontinuing the balun was 
that its construction made it difficult to manufacture consistently. 

While I can accept that the relatively compact size of the 
discontinued balun might have been a limitation, I can't accept as 
fact that some other form of balun more satisfactory for use with a 
wire dipole than one in an aluminum can couldn't be built -- perhaps 
one in a longer tube that allows the coax to come straight away from 
the antenna for distance long enough to support the ferrite cores. Is 
there something else I'm missing? Am I limited to buying a bunch of 
cores and putting them on coax myself? 

And I still have to come up with a decent center insulator/support, 
which the discontinued part did QUITE well, and which the proposed 
replacement doesn't appear to do at all. Has no one at DX Engineering 
ever built or used a wire dipole, other than perhaps as an inverted 
vee supported from a tower? 

Jim Brown  K9YC