Personally I do not see the attraction of an OCF antenna. This subject
has come up often so check the towertalk archives. Also I believe W8JI
has information about them on his website. I thought that K9YC's comments
and link to his site provided useful information.
John KK9A
To: "towertalk@contesting.com" <towertalk@contesting.com>
Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] Remote Tuner with ZS6BKW or OCF Antenna
From: Phil Coley <dxingman@bellsouth.net>
Reply-to: Phil Coley <dxingman@bellsouth.net>
Date: Wed, 29 Jul 2015 16:39:52 +0000 (UTC)
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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