I have a folded dipole coupled to the feed line with an Icon AH4
antenna coupler. That has worked rather well for me in my rather
random pattern of operating. The folded Dipole is a Barker &
Williamson BWD-90 from which I removed the Balun and the center
resister. I then shunted the resisters previous location. I had
been feeding the modified BWD-90 with window line from the terminals
of the AH4 coupler so as to allow the antenna to remain more nearly
flat. With the weight of the balun, the terminating resister, and the
coax on the center of the antenna it drooped quite a bit. I took out
the resister because so many people told me that I would never know if
I was getting a decent signal out or just warming up the resister. If
I should not have shunted out the resisters previous location I would
appreciate not just "don't do that" buy why it is a bad idea.

My problem is that I would now like to use a Yaesu FT-1000 that a
fellow club member has loaned me and I have no way of controlling the
AH-4 because the adapter that I was using with my Yaesu FT-857D will
not work with the Yaesu FT-1000. I am open to any suggestions
providing that they can be done in a yard that allows me only a ninety
foot span between supports. I suppose I could save up and buy a new
coupler but I was hoping for something a little less costly.

Should I give up on using the modified BWD-90 for now and put up
another antenna? I could buy a fan dipole I suppose but I need a way
to feed it that does not require a heavy balun up at the feed point if
possible.

K someone please
--
Tom W3TDH

"Tom Horne" wrote

I am open to any suggestions
providing that they can be done in a yard that allows me only a ninety
foot span between supports. I suppose I could save up and buy a new
coupler but I was hoping for something a little less costly.

I think the simplest solution, and an inexpensive one, is an ordinary
"random length" dipole (in your case, 90 feet long) fed with 450 ohm (or 300
ohm) plastic window (aka ladder) line to a transmatch (aka antenna tuner) in
the shack. With a 90 foot-long antenna you can work down to 80 meters on it.
Since there are several variations on how to get the window line through the
house wall (one of which includes two identical lengths of RG-8 coax), and
there are numerous commercially available transmatches with a wide range of
prices, you have many options that can work well for you. I use just such an
arrangement, though my dipole (actually a somewhat inverted-V) is 140 feet
long with an apex of 39 feet. It works great.

Howard N7SO in NY