[TowerTalk] substandard aluminum?

[Dave Jordan]

HAHA,

I can't argue with your logic Tom.  It's right on the money. But for 
those of us that don't really care if
the signals are 50db over S9 or 10db over S9 that garbage that was built 
40 yrs ago works just fine!

It's always fun having your comments on this reflector ;-)))


73,
dave
wa3gin

Tom Rauch wrote:

>>Tom,  sometimes I wonder why you bother to buy anything.
>>    
>>
>You seem to
>  
>
>>end up rebuilding it better then you can
>>purchase new ;-)
>>    
>>
>
>I'm a stupid impulsive buyer who unfortunately is just smart
>enough to know when I've bought bad engineering.
>
>  
>
>>I've got two of those Telrex baluns (NIB).  Don't intent
>>    
>>
>to use them but
>  
>
>>they are in a way artifacts of the olden days of
>>ham radio. Despite all the rhetoric the Telrex  beams
>>    
>>
>served many a US
>  
>
>>Embassy very well,  for many many years.
>>    
>>
>
>I'm not sure how good an endorsement it is when our
>government buys something. The military loves B&W dipoles
>and those Max-Con resistor loads that are sold as "solid
>state tuners". -10dB is nothing compared to a good SWR when
>you are on a clear channel.
>
>I've heard Telrex made some good antennas, but the 3 ele 40
>I had was garbage (as was the balun). After looking at the
>40 and buying it based on how great it was, I really have to
>question how accurate claims are about other Telrex
>antennas.
>
>The balun was a few turns of large coax with a parallel
>winding of house wire to form a crude air-core voltage
>balun. The winding inductance was far too low to make a good
>15 meter balun, let alone a useful 40M balun. Telrex
>partially compensated for the crappy balun by mismatching
>the driven element, so the user operated blissfully with a
>good match while current in each side of the hairpin was
>unbalanced by a considerable amount.
>
>I'm sure the aluminum tubing would have made a great 20M
>Yagi. It just was far too thin to make a good 40M element.
>
>IMO all this nostalgia about the "good old days" is like
>swooning over a 66 Mustang K code GT. Old stuff may bring
>back fond memories, but  performance in general really
>sucked compared to similar modern products. I like old stuff
>because of the memories of how I THOUGHT it worked, not
>because of how it ACTUALLY worked.
>
>73 Tom
>
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