[TowerTalk] Musing on G5RVs, baluns et al......

[Rroger (K8RI on TowerTalk)]

I've never given much thought to SWR when it comes to operating.  OTOH I 
having operated multi op close to stations using open wire line I 
learned to dislike it with a passion. Yes, I use a line tuner to keep 
the transmitter happy, but if you stop and think, the old transmitters 
did the same thing, they just had the line tuner as part of the 
transmitter.  IOW you did the matching inside the transmitter with the 
swinging link and caps.

  Of course I treat coax about like most do open wire except I find it 
to be more versatile. I use larger, low loss coax and don't worry much 
about losses from Excessive swr.  OTOH although I tried using voltage 
baluns, I found the current baluns stood up much better.  It's also 
difficult to get much use out of open wire line when you tape it to the 
tower legs while the big coax continues to happily work just fine.

I see the G5RV as a very versatile, multi band antenna. Not as good as 
monobanders, but it gives multiple bands in a relatively small area with 
little fuss.

73

Roger (K8RI)