I picked up a used Hy-GAin TH3-MK3 and BN-86 balun used at a hamfest today
with the paper work. It had only been in use a short time and looked new.
I am a 30 year ham but most of my work has been weak signal on 144 and 432
mhz. This is my first beam for the DC bands. Most of my vhf/uhf beams are
broad enough to cover the whole band without a tuner. I noticed the beam
could be used with a home made coil of coax for a choke or the balun could
be used. Nothing new sofar. Then the balun says not to use the the balun
with a tuner because of high voltages causing arcing over. Still nothing
new. I am planning on running the nominal 100 watt rig and maybe later
getting an amp that will run about 600 watts out. I plan on mostly phone
and the upper end of the cw portion of 20 meters for the digital modes. I
am well awear of all the theory of baluns and chokes but what to people that
have used the beam and choke/ balun have to say. Do I use the coax choke,
use a ferrite current choke or the thing that HY-Gain supplies ? I don't
really care if the patern is off to one side or some of the more common
stories about radiating coax.

I can read theory all day but I would like to hear from people that have
used or seen the beam in use.

Ralph,

I used a BN86 with a Mosley TA33JR for about 25 years. A couple of years ago
I got a new Hygain TH3MK4. At that time I replaced the balun with a generic
1:1 current balun. Either one will work just fine, although Hygain does not
recommend the BN86 for high power use. What they do recommend costs an arm
and a leg. The BN86 should be OK for anything less than 1KW.If you do buy a
new balun, make sure it is meant to be used with a beam; that means it comes
with a boom mounting bracket.

Have fun with the TH3. Great antenna.

Tam/WB2TT
"Ralph Mowery" wrote in message
...
I picked up a used Hy-GAin TH3-MK3 and BN-86 balun used at a hamfest today

I used a BN86 with a Mosley TA33JR for about 25 years. A couple of years
ago
I got a new Hygain TH3MK4. At that time I replaced the balun with a
generic
1:1 current balun. Either one will work just fine, although Hygain does
not
recommend the BN86 for high power use. What they do recommend costs an arm
and a leg. The BN86 should be OK for anything less than 1KW.If you do buy
a
new balun, make sure it is meant to be used with a beam; that means it
comes
with a boom mounting bracket.


Thanks for the reply. I did get on the internet and found the mk4 book. It
seems there is a setting about halfway between the phone and cw segments. I
guess the mk3 could be set that way also. I think I am going to try that in
about a year when I move and get a tower back up. I will probably use it
for phone but would like to have it set for a reasonable swr on 20 meters
down to about 14.07 for the digital modes. The other bands I don't really
care about as I work mostly weak signals on 2 meters and above.

No more than I use the DC bands I am not sure why I got it but it looked
almost new and was about half price..Last hamfest of the year for me and had
some extra radio money :-)

73 de KU4PT

"Ralph Mowery" wrote in message
...
Thanks for the reply. I did get on the internet and found the mk4 book.
It
seems there is a setting about halfway between the phone and cw segments.
I
guess the mk3 could be set that way also. I think I am going to try that
in
about a year when I move and get a tower back up. 73 de KU4PT

Ralph,
I think I have mine set on the compromise setting. I measured the SWR with
an MFJ269 at the base of the tower. Feedline is about 50 feet of RG8FOAM. I
get

14.07 MHz SWR=1.5
14.175 1.1
14.225 1.2
14.300 1.7
14.350 2.6
Virtually all of my operation is between 14.175 and 14.250.

Tam/WB2TT

I have the exact same configuration that I inherited from a ham who moved
into a retirement community. He had used the thing for many years, my guess
is he bought it back in the 70's. He had never had any problems with it,
running a SB-200 kilowatt linear on it.

I bought the plastics and stainless steel replacment kits from HyGain,
completely rebuilt it, and retuned it to the "compromise" frequencies that
WB2TT mentioned. I've had it up about a month now and used it from 14.070
PSK up to 14.250 SSB with the amplifier, and with no problems whatsoever. I
haven't made a graph of the SWR v.s. frequency, but as I said, I'm running
the kilowatt and haven't had any problems in just the month that it's been
up. Now that the wet Seattle winter is setting in, I guess we'll see if I
have any arcing when it gets damp.

The BN-86 is such a clunky balun anyway, I'm hoping that it will fry so I
can replace it with something that looks a little nicer. But for the price
(the whole works was free for the price of getting it off his property so he
could sell his home), I'm not complaining.

73, Dave, WA0TTN

"Ralph Mowery" wrote in message
...
I picked up a used Hy-GAin TH3-MK3 and BN-86 balun used at a hamfest today
with the paper work. It had only been in use a short time and looked new.
I am a 30 year ham but most of my work has been weak signal on 144 and 432
mhz. This is my first beam for the DC bands. Most of my vhf/uhf beams are
broad enough to cover the whole band without a tuner. I noticed the beam
could be used with a home made coil of coax for a choke or the balun could
be used. Nothing new sofar. Then the balun says not to use the the balun
with a tuner because of high voltages causing arcing over. Still nothing
new. I am planning on running the nominal 100 watt rig and maybe later
getting an amp that will run about 600 watts out. I plan on mostly phone
and the upper end of the cw portion of 20 meters for the digital modes. I
am well awear of all the theory of baluns and chokes but what to people
that
have used the beam and choke/ balun have to say. Do I use the coax choke,
use a ferrite current choke or the thing that HY-Gain supplies ? I don't
really care if the patern is off to one side or some of the more common
stories about radiating coax.

I can read theory all day but I would like to hear from people that have
used or seen the beam in use.

p.s. Here's the unit in all it's glory:
http://www.netdave.com/wa0ttn/images/TowerUp/Tower1.jpg