[TowerTalk] Remote Tuner with ZS6BKW or OCF Antenna

Phil Coley dxingman at bellsouth.net
Wed Jul 29 12:39:52 EDT 2015


As a long time reader of this post, I decided to ask a question in regards to putting up a wire antennaat my QTH. Due to health reasons, we gave up our 2 story house a few years ago and chose a smallsingle level home with some trees. At 72 years old and after 2 bouts with cancer, I am no longer ableto think about towers and beams after 55+ years of hamming.
Having never tried a G5RV/ZS6BKW or OCF antenna, I did a lot of research and reading on the web about these antennas. I know all the "pro & cons" about them that has been posted or written about invery informative articles. I have read the need of current chokes/isolators and baluns  and know frompersonal experience their usefulness. Especially with multiple beams, tower slopers, verticals, etc overthe years at my old QTH where I did a lot of DXing on all bands. (DXCC total of 374 countries).However, I have never seen anything relating to using a "remote" antenna tuner" with these wire antennas. I can get the wire up about 60' in the trees but the coax run will be about 150'. That's a lot of loss (even withquality coax) with the OCF even with a good SWR (not to mention the loss using a ZS6BKW series).So I was thinking of trying a remote tuner such as LDG or MFJ (at ground level) between the feed line andthe shack in an attempt to reduce losses to my 100 watt rig. Yes, I realize the need of the isolators and chokesdue to common mode currents and voltages on the lines that help with several things (loss, receive noise, etc) on these antennas. But I will no longer be "digging" for those weak DX stations nor running the high power. Just a bit of hamming with the wire antenna along with a vertical antenna I'm putting up again. Maybe I'll worka bit of DX but no longer my priority. 
After posting my hopeful inquiry on June 26th, I got one view (thanks Jim, K9YC) on the matter and a coupleof non related. Looking at the posts lately, I see over 40 related to "Slobering  (Soldering) Irons" with a fewrelated to the initial post and a lot off the subject matter. Really? I guess soldering irons are of more interestthan info relating to remote tuners with unusual antennas?
Well, guess I'm wasting my time here trying to get some legitimate help. I am going to "unsubscribe" now andseek help through other areas.
Wish I could say thanks, but I can't! I hope everyone is up to date on soldering, tips and soldering stations.
73, Phil K4MPE


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