Curt,
There seems to be a misconception among hams that when using 450 ladder
line, a 4:1 balun is the best thing to use. While that may be true in
some cases, in many other cases, a 1:1 balun will serve better. It all
depends on the feedpoint impedance of the feedline at the shack end, and
that has little relationship with the fact that 450 ohm line is being
used - i.e. the feedpoint impedance is *not* the characteristic
impedance of the transmission line in most cases. The feedpoint
impedance looking into the shack end of a multiband antenna can vary
from extremely low to extremely high - it all depends on the length of
the antenna and the length of the feedline.
That being said, I would suggest that you use an Elecraft BL2 right at
the output of the KAT100. Try it at the 1:1 setting first, and then try
the 4:1 setting to see which produces the better results for each band.
It would be informative to measure the impedance into the unbalanced end
of the balun with an antenna analyzer on each band - use the setting
that does not produce an extremely low of extremely high SWR on the
analyzer. Often adding or subtracting a length of feedline will bring
the feedpoint impedance into a better range for matching.
73,
Don W3FPR
Curt Milton wrote:
I admit I enjoyed using a KAT100 at FD, but I wonder
how much value it would be at my station.
For feeding my wire antenna with balanced line, I
suspect I need an external balun, that has to go
someplace, and better to be attached to one of the
tuner inputs. Currently I use a manual MFJ tuner
(with its internal 4:1 balun) to operate my wire
antenna on 30, 40, 80 and 160m. I can imagine the
autotuner being useful here, but I can't envision the
balun to use and how to attach it to the KAT100.
My other antennas are 2 multiband verticals (80/40 and
20/17/15/12/10), and these are nicely matched where I
operate - so not much utility for the KAT100 here.
So will a KAT100 make my QSY more seamless, and what
balun to use and how to integrate it ?
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