[Antennas] Baluns and tuners

[Jan Reimers]

Thanks again to everyone who helped out with my balanced tuner question. The
Richard Measures article was very informative.

	I have managed to build a simple Pi network tuner (unbalanced) with
a roller inductor, and would like to use it to feed parallel line going to
some sort of wire antenna (I suppose I'll start with a 40M dipole).  So I
need a balun between the tuner and the feedline.  I have purchased a ferrite
core for this purpose (man these traditional parts are hard to find!).  I
also have some 300 Ohm "radio shack special" flat line, but I could also
make a higher impedance parallel line with thicker wire and Plexiglas
spreaders.  I plan to run max 100W but with high SWR between the tuner and
antenna. I have never done any of this before so here are my novice level
questions:

1) Is the 300Ohm flat line suitable, or would I be much better off making my
own (more manly) feedline?
2) Should I wind the balun in a 4:1 arrangement, or do I need to closely
match the resistance ratio of the antenna feed line and tuner output (even
though the antenna Z will be jumping around depending on what band I am on).
The only reason I prefer 4:1 is that the ARRL antenna book tells me exactly
how many turns to do for 4:1.
3) Once I wind the balun how do I know it works?  i.e. How do I know I have
the right number of winds and that the current on the feedline is really
balanced.  (I am the proud owner of 1 voltmeter and 1 SWR meter, not much
more!)

Thanks
Jan (VA7JNR)