On Fri, 11 Sep 2009 00:15:23 -0400, " Ron"
wrote:


I have a 50 ft tower just ready to throw up something to operate.

Cost is the problem but I have a lot of parts to build. I want to put up a
dipole (I have a manual all band tuner) and my question is should feed it
with ladder line or feed it with coax and then run each leg about 68 ft .

I have a single tree in the middle at my site and I use it as the
feedpoint for an inverted-V antenna. Each segment is about 20 m long
from the feed point for 3.5 MHz operation. Also there are two 10 m
segments in different directions for 7 (and 21 MHz). There are some
ferrite toroids on the coax close to the feed point as a current
balun.

I also experimented with two 5 m segments from the same feed point
into slightly different directions for 14 MHz operation.
Unfortunately, it was quite hard to find the suitable length for these
segments using any SWR measurements and by using a noise bridge, I had
to extend the segments with nearly a meter, in order to get the SWR
down to operate without a tuner. Of course this varies from site to
site.

Paul OH3LWR