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neonhomer
Dearborn 5-2750
Premium Member
join:2004-01-27
Edgewater, FL

neonhomer

Premium Member

Going long wire....

This past weekend I was at a family reunion in a county park over on the west coast of Florida. This was also the weekend the National Hurricane Center was doing their equipment test, and I was going to try to participate. Well, I ended up not being able to. One reason was because I didn't have an antenna.

My radio has SO-239's on the back of it (Yaesu FT-857D). One for HF, one for 2m/440. I also have an LDG tuner for the radio. I was trying to figure out how to use a long wire with this.

The only way I could figure was to use a 1:1 balun with wingnuts, pipe that into my tuner, and then into the radio.

Didn't know if there was a more "ham" way to do this...

SmokChsr
Who let the magic smoke out?
Premium Member
join:2006-03-17
Saint Augustine, FL

SmokChsr

Premium Member

That would work. The quickest option would have been to simply take the coax out of the tuner and ground the shield and tie the center to the long wire. That's not the best but it can work for a long wire.

neonhomer
Dearborn 5-2750
Premium Member
join:2004-01-27
Edgewater, FL

neonhomer

Premium Member

Ground to what? I didn't think about a grounding method.

SmokChsr
Who let the magic smoke out?
Premium Member
join:2006-03-17
Saint Augustine, FL

SmokChsr

Premium Member

Anything you can find.. Water pipe, ground rod, etc..
For the balun to work best you would want to go to a dipole, still you can ground one side of of the balun.

Note you would normally want a 4:1 balun for a dipole.
Phillip
I Need A Nap
join:2004-12-21
Hatboro, PA

Phillip to neonhomer

Member

to neonhomer
With the LDG tuner, you can use a banana plug ( »www.digikey.com/product- ··· ND/35146 ) in the center of the SO-239 connector and a hose clamp warped in tape (except ware the counter poise wires attach) on the out side of the connector.

Run a long wire of about 40 to 60' and 3 to 4 counterpoise wires about 30' long.

If you want to go a little more sophisticated, do a web search on how to make a 4:1 UnUn. For long wires and vertical antennas, you want to use a UnUn (Unbalanced to Unbalanced)and not BalUn (Balanced to Unbalanced), since these types of antennas are unbalanced unlike dipoles and beams.

You can also buy one from LDG or balun designs if you do not want to make one.

neonhomer
Dearborn 5-2750
Premium Member
join:2004-01-27
Edgewater, FL

neonhomer

Premium Member

I didn't know you had to use counterpoises on a long wire.

Would have been impractical for where I was going to use the radio. Was at a pavilion in a county park. Could have grounded to a nearby water tap, and there were quite a few tall trees around.

Then again, with a UnUn, I could have just did the longwire and counterpoises away from the radio, and then ran my 25' length of RG-8 back to the radio.

Almost contemplated using my G5RV, but that would have been a lot of stuff to carry out to a park just to talk to the National Hurricane Center for 30 seconds. LOL