[Boatanchors] Pickup loop

[mikea]

On Mon, Jun 12, 2006 at 03:39:21PM -0700, telegrapher at att.net wrote:
> Some months back i asked about a pickup loop that was installed either 
> in broadcast transmitters or somewhere in close proximity so that they 
> could provide sufficient power to operate a Gates modulation monitor. 
> The Gates unit needs approximately 10W to drive it properly.  I'm 
> wondering if a person couldn't use a capacitor arrangement to provide 
> the same results.  TMC uses that on their power amps to provide 1/300th 
> of the output power to drive a monitor, scope or freq. counter.  Now i 
> have a sealed box with the proper connectors on it that takes 1 kW input 
> and delivers i forget what (1 mw maybe) to the output in a T 
> configuration.  It's not a big box either so i'm suspecting that it's a 
> capacitive type unit.
> 
> Am i thinking along the correct lines here or has the fire gone out in 
> my pipe?  Is this a reasonable line to pursue?

It's perfectly reasonable, and Bird makes two capacitative taps for
just this. One is for HF, and the other for VHF and up. I have no 
idea what they go for, but one of each is on my buy-this list. 

-- 
Mike Andrews, W5EGO
mikea at mikea.ath.cx
Tired old sysadmin