Hi,

As far as photos go I plan on posting some this next week on the yahoo
group for skywires.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SkyWires/

I just put the skywire up, and it is definitely a step up from my
dipole I just took down.

I'm measuring the difference based on the reception of the
International Beacons I can pick up.

http://www.ncdxf.org/beacon/beaconSchedule.html

I can now pick up the one in Russia occasionally , which I could
never on my dipole.

The other thing is that I can pick up some of the beacons on the
higher frequencies, that I never could before.

As far as RG6, I bought some from Radio shack, trying to save a little
money. It was intended for Video use, and not radio, but I figured it
was worth a try.

I had to snip off one of the F connectors to solder it to the Skywire.
The shielding wasn't copper braid, but an aluminum foil type shielding
that was impossible to solder. So I ended up using my old R59. So be
careful what you buy.

I'm very happy with the answers to my questions. Please keep them
coming.

Thanks.

I made the switch to RG6 a few years ago and am pleased; with the
reducer for RG8x you can go directly to a PL-259 without an adapter.
The loss at HF is negligible, it's less expensive than the RG-8 family
of cables and the receiver doesn't care that it's 75 ohms. If your
existing cable is working it isn't worth the effort to switch -however
in future installations it's an option worth serious consideration.


The rg-6 is fine. Just be awear that much of it has an aluminum shield and
can not be soldered to . You must make a good mechanical connection.

On 4 Oct 2003 16:42:36 -0700, (Walter)
wrote:


(1) Will using a Ladder Line instead of Coax improve my reception?

For really long runs maybe. The biggest advantage for ladder line is
its low loss. But with 500 feet of longwire, you have plenty of signal
which would easily overcome any appreciable loss.

I researched this myself recently. Some say it wouldnt hold up to
rough weather such as snow and ice. Coax is pretty rugged comparably.

The key to using coax effectively is ensuring you're matching the coax
to the antenna. Given the longwire might be 450 ohms or better a 4-1
or higher balun (actually called a long wire matching transformer) is
imperative.

If your improperly matched, 75 ohm coax is better than 50 ohm as it
would reduce the mismatch slightly.

To ensure the coax actually helps block noise as it feeds the signal
in, be certain to ground the sheild at both the antenna and near the
receiver. If you dont do this, currents flow in the shield.

While coax is marginally lossy, improperly matched coax is really
lossy. When the antenna and coax are matched you get max signal "flow"
to your receiver.

(2) If so, where do I change to coax? Or do I just run the Ladder line
into the house and straight to the receiver?

I think you would need a balanced/unbalanced (balun) to do this.
Ladder line is balanced, coax is not.


(3) What about electrical interference since the ladder line isn't
shielded?

Ladder line cancels noise like twisted pair does. Each wire cancels
the noise picked up by the other.

Lastly, consider an antenna tuner if you dont already have one, this
will further help in matching as impedances change with frequency.

mike