For travel, I am using a homebrew 17 ft dipole as the HF antenna for
my Icom R-10 wideband receiver. It is made from 27 ft of 28 ga
zip-type ribbon cable with the first 17 ft having the wires separated
(the dipole) and the last ten feet unzipped (the feed line).

(1) Will performance improve if I replace the feedline with coax or
shielded audio cable? I would rather not because that would
substantially increase bulk.

The radio and antenna are ungrounded. Is anything to be gained by
running one side -- the side to BNC jack shield -- to the AC mains
ground or the local plumbing?

Ken KC2JDY


Ken
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On Fri, 17 Dec 2004 09:53:31 -0500, Ken wrote:

(1) Will performance improve if I replace the feedline with coax or
shielded audio cable? I would rather not because that would
substantially increase bulk.

Hi Ken,

No, not at the short lengths you describe (and you would need to add
an RF choke at the far end to make the investment in coax useful).
You might want to think in terms of RG-174 if you do want to go coax.

The radio and antenna are ungrounded. Is anything to be gained by
running one side -- the side to BNC jack shield -- to the AC mains
ground or the local plumbing?

Sure, it will add to the length of the antenna (the ground path will
undoubtedly be a substantial length wrt wavelength). By the same
token, it could add just as much (or more) noise.

73's
Richard Clark, KB7QHC

No and no.

"Ken" wrote in message
...
For travel, I am using a homebrew 17 ft dipole as the HF antenna for
my Icom R-10 wideband receiver. It is made from 27 ft of 28 ga
zip-type ribbon cable with the first 17 ft having the wires separated
(the dipole) and the last ten feet unzipped (the feed line).

(1) Will performance improve if I replace the feedline with coax or
shielded audio cable? I would rather not because that would
substantially increase bulk.

The radio and antenna are ungrounded. Is anything to be gained by
running one side -- the side to BNC jack shield -- to the AC mains
ground or the local plumbing?

Ken KC2JDY


Ken
(to reply via email
remove "zz" from address)