Steve,
Thanks for the great information. I wonder if heating will be an issue
with a coax balun? I did have the MFJ BN76 (or whatever the model # is)
balun on the antenna up until about a month ago. At that time I took it
down and tore everything apart looking for an intermittent. When I put
it back on the tower I replaced the "boxed" balun with a coax one (I've
become a fan of coax baluns). Would there still be heating in a coax
balun?
73
Kelly - N0VD
PS - sorry for the "double" post. I think my first message got held for
approval since I inadvertently sent from a non-subscribed address. It
must have recently been released by the moderator.
-----Original Message-----
From: VE6WZ_Steve [mailto:ve6wz@shaw.ca]
Sent: Monday, June 12, 2006 5:35 PM
To: Kelly Jones; TowerTalk@contesting.com
Subject: RE: [TowerTalk] Cushcraft XM240 & Shunt fed tower
Kelly:
Don't forget about the driven element.
That driven element may have a DC ground through the coax shield, but
the current balun can get real hot carrying the 160m RF !!
A WORD OF CAUTION when shunt feeding a tower with an XM-240 on top:
There is a very good chance you will "cook" the balun unless you short
the driven element to the boom when TX on 160m. Here is a photo of what
my XM-240 CC balun looked like after a year of shuntfeeding the tower on
160 without shorting the current balun:
http://www.qsl.net/ve6wz/CCbalun.htm I came to suspect this problem
when I could see the 160m SWR slowly drift with KW key down as the balun
heated up !!!
It's likely each shunt-fed tower setup may act differently depending on
the top loading configuration (other Yagis etc.) but you may want to put
a small relay at the driver. I just use a small 12v relay that is
powered in parallel with my tower mounted switch box.
BTW...before I grounded my XM-240 reflector I would here the same
"tick"-"tick" sound, but not only when electrical activity was nearby,
but also on warm breezy sunny days too. Wind static ???
de steve ve6wz http://www.qsl.net/ve6wz/
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