Essex Ham Chat Forum

I agree - the use of stainless is essential. Doesn't solder so well though! Charlie's UNUN balun is magic by the way. http://www.hamgoodies.co.uk/ - I can tune 100ft of random wire on 106-10 with a, Pi/L tuner and the balun at 16:1 fed by 25m of RG58

Have you ever heard of the Joystick VFA ...?

Stainless are nuts, bolts and washers, All the radials have been tinned at the ends and obviously the socket. Charlie's baluns are probably very good however I will be making my own and this will have a 9.1 balun. 25 Metre of RG 58 is a lot of loss even at HF. And yes I have heard of the Joystick VFA.

I've been following this thread for a bit and wanted to thank Bill for mentioning my "multi" UnUn - it's nothing magic but can be useful in some situations. Steve 2E0UEH also has one. They (and, infact, any UnUn) need something to work against, ie: some sort of counterpoise (the more the merrier and all that).

Not wishing to pee on Paul's parade, but what's been described (and shown) appears to be simply an not-particularly-resonant Inverted-L with some radials and reliance on a manual matching device. Nothing wrong with that but that's what I'm seeing - tell me if I'm incorrect :)

The "9:1 balun" and accompanying picture puzzles me. The core (looks like a T200-2, a good choice) has a bifilar winding which seems to be set-up as a 4:1 (voltage) balun - a poor choice of device to stick at the bottom of (what I suspect is) an Inverted-L. If the ATU really must go in the Shack, then at the feed-point you *may* want to use a 1:1 current balun to choke-off any chance of the outside of the feeder radiating. It may be that an UnUn (not a BALun) of a certain ratio would also work - it depends upon the impedance presented on each band and how much "work" your tuner has to do. That's why Bill's using my multi-ratio box!

Hopefully the above is of use - but you're off to a good start and experimentation is the key, but wanted to clarify what seemed to be some mis-use of terms which may help those reading this(!).

Have fun :)

Have just worked VK3MO on 20 metres with 100 watts with conditions being only fair and we swapped signal reports of S8 each. After the stress from the council I was very close to given up this hobby after having to take both my antenna's down but David M1ECC gave me an idea for a stealth antenna with ground radials and a ground system and has given me confidence so I want to say a big thank you to David. He has also been my success in working many countries by pushing me through my depression and getting me on the radio. It is just proof that you really don't need a massive beam to work the world or even an antenna that has to be a quarterwave above the ground. I have also had some input from another ham who has given me advice. I have worked most of dx stations when conditions have only been fair where I have heard others on the band moaning about bad conditions but this man has shown me never underestimate your station.