[TowerTalk] DX Engineering Wire Dipole Baluns Discontinued

[Pete Smith]

Does seem odd -- I have had very good luck with the balun kits -- basically 
just a length of teflon coax and beads -- sold by the Wireman.  I use 
Budwig HQ1 center insulators, put a PL-259 on each end of the balun, and 
use a big tie wrap looped over the insulator and taped to the balun to help 
hold the weight of the feedline.  I have had 4 of these on my 80m array for 
years with no failures.  At ~$7 for the insulators and ~$8 for the balun 
kits, it's hard to go wrong.

73, Pete N4ZR

At 11:21 AM 4/21/2005, Jim Brown wrote:

>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
>
>
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