[TowerTalk] 2 Meter Balun Question

[Patrick Greenlee]

I'm aware of all the things you mention and more. I think the light bulb 
comment is unwarranted.  You will note although my info is anecdotal it 
nevertheless represents over 20 years of hands on experience with successful 
communications on both bands with the same setup mentioned.  I think a more 
apropos remark would be along the lines of quacks like a duck waddles line a 
duck etc. or irrespective of the opinions of certain aerodynamicists the 
bumble bee flies.  My comments are not idle speculation fueled by a lack of 
experience.  I used the set up extensively up and down the west coast with 
great satisfaction.  Had I been overly worried about "convention" I may not 
have tried but in trying I found a satisfactory long tern solid solution, 
for my needs.  YMMV.

73,

Patrick AF5CK

-----Original Message----- 
From: Jim Brown
Sent: Thursday, November 21, 2013 11:48 AM
To: towertalk at contesting.com
Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] 2 Meter Balun Question

On 11/21/2013 5:19 AM, Patrick Greenlee wrote:
> At a height of 50 ft or so it worked quite well on both bands. The coax 
> ran inside the aluminum mast.  No ferrites were used.

As N6BT has long observed, everything "works," even a light bulb as an
antenna. A primary purpose of a common mode choke on a feedline is to
minimize the coupling of noise from the feedline to the antenna.

As to using the marine-band antenna on 2M -- it depends entirely on the
design of that antenna (its impedance vs frequency), the length of the
feedline, and the output stage of your transmitter. If the mismatch is
large enough, the output stage will provide less power, both because it
is mismatched, and also because it "folds back" (reduces output to
protect itself). The mismatch will add a bit of loss to the feedline,
but that won't be a lot if you're using big coax like RG8/RG213 -- the
line isn't long enough for this to be a big deal unless the SWR is
greater than about 4:1.

The best answer is to get the data sheet for the antenna and study the
graph of SWR vs frequency.  Or get one of these antennas and measure the
SWR with a decent meter. FWIW, 10% bandwidth is fairly wide, but two of
our ham bands are that wide or more.  160M is 10%, 80/75 is nearly 14%,
and lots of us are able to match our wire antennas to our rigs and work
a lot of DX.

73, Jim K9YC
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