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Re: [TowerTalk] 80m DX special dipole

To: towertalk@contesting.com
Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] 80m DX special dipole
From: Jim Brown <jim@audiosystemsgroup.com>
Reply-to: jim@audiosystemsgroup.com
Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2018 22:19:50 -0700
List-post: <mailto:towertalk@contesting.com>
On 9/11/2018 12:27 PM, Guido Tedeschi wrote:
I built an 80m DX special dipole.

http://1vc.typepad.com/ethergeist/2011/01/a-broadband-contest-antenna-for-80m.html

I used the Messi & Paoloni BROAD-PRO 50/C cable instead of RG213 (https://messi.it/dati/immagini/BROAD-PRO50-All6_EN.pdf).

From the antenna description :

"Don't substitute anything other than RG8U for the RG213. The lengths of the coax stubs are calculated based on the dielectric properties and velocity factors of these cables."   Which is sort of confusing, given that RG8 and RG213 are fairly generic descriptions nowadays, but what he means is stick with a cable with VF = 0.66.

There is, by the way, another very good way to broadband the match to a dipole to cover 3500 - 3900 and keep the SWR below 2:1. EE prof W6NL says the idea goes back at least 80 years.

Cut the antenna to about 3675 kHz and verify that it resonates there. Connect a half-wave of any good 50 ohm coax to the antenna, then add a quarter-wave of a good 75 ohm coax. If the combined length is too long, coil up the excess. If you need more coax to get to the rig, add any length of 50 ohm coax.

For both sections of coax, carefully verify that they're really a half wave at 3675 kHz using an analyzer.  The easy way to do that is to connect one end of the half wave coax to the analyzer with the far end shorted. When it's a half wave, the analyzer should read a near short (1 ohm or so). With the quarter-wave section, measure it with the far end OPEN, and you should see a near short.

An analysis of how this matching works is shown in

http://k9yc.com/PacificonSmithChart.pdf

beginning around slide #46. Slide #47 shows that for an ideal dipole and good coax, loss in the line will be 0.4 dB in the middle of the band and less than about 0.7 dB at 3500 and 3900. SWR (at the transmitter end) will be about 1.4:1 mid-band and about 1.6-1.7 at the band edges.  Slide #51 shows that you can increase the first 50 ohm section to a full wavelength, yielding lower SWR at the band edges at the cost of increased line loss.

73, Jim K9YC

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