On Mon, 09 Jul 2007 22:46:51 GMT, "Woody" wrote:

Ok, maybe that's what I'll do then... So should I use a balun of any kind or
just make a coax connection of my own?

Hi Woody,

To answer this and your other question about radials, I will use my
own experience.

I drove a ground rod at a remote point, about 12 feet from the house
and closer to the woods. My shack was at ground level and this rod
was more an anchor for a former vertical (where the rod extended up
out of the ground for a foot). Anyway, my principle ground was the
service ground 6 feet from my operating position with both rods tied
together.

At the remote rod (basically at the crest of the ridge), I fanned out
radials down the slope. Don't worry about tuning them, or cutting
them for a band, the proximity of ground completely negates any sense
of tune.

At this remote point, I built a box that contained a choke (a short
length of coax with 50 or 70 beads) that terminated in a BNC bulkhead
connector at one end, and two porcelain posts.

One post was tied to the radial field, the other post was tied to the
skywire. This put the system ground out at the feedpoint when I ran
battery (I always do unless I am on a float charge). This means any
house noise was 12 feet further away than would have normally been
encountered and snubbed properly by the choke. I measured this and
found it to be quite effective for noise control alone.

The sky wire (12 ga THNN) merely lifted off from about 1 foot off the
ground up to the canopy (Maples) around 60 feet above. The wire ran
down the hill, on top of the canopy for about 200 feet. At the remote
end, I simply tied it to a limb (at ground level, the wire ending
somewhere high above) through a length of 1/16th inch nylon line
(crab-pot line). So, from the feedpoint to on-high, the wire
basically described a sideways V with ground (as the slope also fell
beneath it too at roughly the same angle of 25 degrees).

During a storm, two of my Maples snapped about 30 feet above ground
level (but down the slope) and one lay over horizontal, and was
suspended there 20 feet above ground by snagging other trees. The
traditional term for that 30 foot length of tree in this area is
called a "widow maker." On its way down, it hit my wire, ripped the
box off the post, yanked the coax along until it strained my house
connection and broke the coax connection there.

After the storm, I hove the wire over the widow maker, confirmed the
1/16th inch nylon withstood the strain (who wulda thought?) and
repaired the stripped BNC house connection. Amazingly only the ground
wire to the radial field broke when the box started to fly.

We get messages here from those who agonize about setting the woods on
fire - never happened to me, and I never worried about it.

73's
Richard Clark, KB7QHC