I too replaced a BN86 on my 204BA twice and that was before the move to
Mississippi. However not all American product is built to low standards.
The Hy-Gain Antennas were good for their time and held up reasonably well.
Today we have SteppIR Making a fine product and the likes of Elecraft, Flex
and TenTec have produced some amazingly fine radios which are beating the
competition from overseas. No one will find service to beat that of
Elecraft anywhere else in the world!
73 Doug EI2CN
-----Original Message-----
From: towertalk-bounces@contesting.com
[mailto:towertalk-bounces@contesting.com] On Behalf Of Jim Thomson
Sent: 19 May 2010 21:18
To: towertalk@contesting.com
Subject: [TowerTalk] BN-86 Balun
Date: Wed, 19 May 2010 11:15:30 -0400
From: "KB1H" <kb1h@ct.metrocast.net>
Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] BN-86 Balun
I believe the answer is simple. It has to be cheap (not expensive) for the
ham market. A quality product can be made but those that would spend the
extra cash are too few thus making the product even more expensive.
## The BN-86 was junk back in 1963... it was junk in the mid 70's.. and it's
junk today. Hy- gain has no right to even build it. Pure fraud.
## I incinerated 3 x bn-86's [ on 3 x different ants] back in the mid
70's. Any bozo can see what the design flaw is... once you open one
up with a bandsaw. 9 x more BN-86's got blown up around town here
within 2 x yrs. 1976-1979.
American thinking is the product has to do the job not necessarily with the
highest quality or best technology. I run up against this everyday for the
last 30 years!
## so where is the cost savings ??? Joe ham replaces one BN-86
after another after another ?? Why doesn't the ARRL lab just test it
with a 2 kw cxr.. and 2:1 swr.... poof.. bye bye balun. Then don`t accept
any advertising on the BN-86... until they fix the problem.
We measure power output at the ant.. AFTER feed line loss. There is at
least
25+ blown up BN-86 baluns here in town. The Attorney general
for what ever state these pieces of junk are made in... should be
tossing MFJ-Hi-gain-shue in the slammer...for false advertising. Heck,
they
are not even 1:1 ratio on 10m.
## I had Ken Hirchberg at Cal-AV labs custom build me 5 x new
baluns several years ago. They worked so good, and are so reliable,
I convinced Ken to perhaps make it a standard product...EB-3. Pumped
full of silicone goop... done in a VAC chamber. Special 7-16
DIn connector's used. Silver plated Teflon 10 ga wire. I wanted 8 ga, but
the
thought was the RG-393 teflon coax used is only 13 ga. Everything is silver
soldered...and all teflon is 1st etched in a lab in Colo. They are 17
inchs
long.. and will function from 7-60 mhz. I have the 80m version as well..
which is
24 x inchs long. The 160m version is 30 x inchs long.
You can`t get water into em.. and you can`t blow them up. The EB1 and EB2
baluns are excellent as well. Array solutions has a lot of other good
baluns..
like the W1JR versions.. which use 393 coax as well as 7-16 dins, etc.
If you want to buy half a doz BN-86`s.... go for it. One good balun is a
lot
cheaper than 20 x BN-86`s. If you want to HB a balun... just slide type-43
large beads over your 213-U. Having to remove the yagi from the top of a
100`tower.. just to change a BN-86 balun is plane nuts. They should never
have to
be rerplaced. In some cases, cranes are used...and pro -installers used.
I`d send the
Bill to martin himself.
later... Jim VE7RF
Dick - KB1H
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