My two cents is that no traps I have ever used held up long (days/weeks) under any sort of AM, except the butternut antenna, which does not use real traps, but some other crazy setup.
All the trap dipole stuff crapped out even under DX100 power eventually, and forget about 300 watts (carrier) and up. I made a nice fire in my heathkit 2kw antenna tuner when I tried to use the balun inside it. I do dipoles cut to length, or with loading coils, no tuner now. The butternut makes a good dummy load, might work well for DX, but I don't work DX, and locally, I think the cantenna gets out better. Open wire line is great and easy/cheap to make, but getting it inside the house without a load of RF around, and into a good balanced tuner is a pain, and then you have to tune it to change bands. A sturdy resonant dipole fed with good coax is very robust and trouble free. My 80 meter dipole was up 10 years before a (small) B+W coil stock loading coil broke. When I lived with my parents, I had a radio shack 36 foot mast on their chimney, going to a tree out front, and another mast in the back yard. Storm tore the chimney off the house and bent the mast in the back yard over 90 degrees! Dad was pissed but homeowners covered it. Brett N2DTS -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Byron Lichtenwalner Sent: Tuesday, December 14, 2004 11:54 AM To: Discussion of AM Radio Subject: Re: [AMRadio] Antenna Tuner Wonderings Don Sounds like your on the right track with the trapped dipole. Another choice might be to use a random length wire and good ground with any of the many automatic ant. tuners designed to end feed long wires. Used one in a mobile installation with a 17 ft whip with reasonable success. Byron, W3WKR ----- Original Message ----- From: "Merz Donald S" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; <amradio@mailman.qth.net> Sent: Tuesday, December 14, 2004 11:39 AM Subject: RE: [AMRadio] Antenna Tuner Wonderings The antenna inventory at ARS N3RHT: Radio works 80M Windom, one end in the attic and the other end in a tree at the far corner of the property, with ends drooped down to fit the space, fed with coax Homebrew vertical dipole, about 40 feet total length, stuck upright in a big ole pine tree and held lovingly in place by the tree's branches, fed with 450 ohm ladder line to a Heathkit B-1 balun and then coax into the shack. Butternut HF-6V with the 160 meter option, on top of a 30 foot pole with a home-made counterpoise following plans published in CQ. Some of the counterpoise wires have broken. Fed with coax. Homebrew from one of the W6SAI books 10-15-20 multi-band meter dipole in the attic, center is Van Gordon 1:1 balun, tuned to resonance using MFJ 259, and fed with coax The other stuff is VHF or too junky to be worth mentioning. In a few weeks, I will put up that 1977 NOS trap dipole that I mentioned. My house is on a small, suburban lot, but that lot sits on the highest point for 20 miles in all directions. Anyway....that's what I'm working with here. All ideas appreciated. 73, Don Merz, N3RHT -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, December 13, 2004 5:59 PM To: Merz Donald S; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; amradio@mailman.qth.net Subject: Re: [AMRadio] Antenna Tuner Wonderings Don, What kind of "crappy" antennas are you using, i.e., doublets fed with coax, open wire lines, etc., or end-fed wires? Or, some combination of types maybe? Rather that building up a bunch of tuners you might consider putting your efforts into erecting a set of antennas that all worked directly off a 50 or 75 ohm coax feedlines. Half-wave dipoles, one for each band, for example, or one or more of the multi-band arrangements (G5RV, fan and trap dipole, etc.). Dennis D. W7QHO Glendale, CA The information contained in this e-mail may be confidential and is intended solely for the use of the named addressee. Access, copying or re-use of the e-mail or any information contained therein by any other person is not authorized. If you are not the intended recipient please notify us immediately by returning the e-mail to the originator.(A) ______________________________________________________________ AMRadio mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/amradio Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.html Post: mailto:AMRadio@mailman.qth.net ______________________________________________________________ AMRadio mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/amradio Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.html Post: mailto:AMRadio@mailman.qth.net
