[Boatanchors] Re: GB> An Old Idea - and a caution!

[J Forster]

Glen Zook wrote:

> Back in the "goode olde dayes" many baluns did not make it much down below 50 MHz.  However, those manufactured in the past two or three decades should be fine for HF use.  This is because certain functions on cable television utilize frequencies below 5 MHz and the baluns had to pass this frequency. [snip]

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Why? In cable systems, the cable coax goes directly into the cable box where anything that uses non-TV frequencies would be located. A balun would be on the output of the cable box, at the TV. The TV has no use for anything below Ch 2.

FWIW,
-John

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>  Even though I wrote an article that was in Electric Radio a while back about using TV baluns (it can be found on my website) I did "check" with a friend who was in the cable television field for decades.  From him I learned about the frequencies below 5 MHz and the fact that the baluns had to "pass" these frequencies.
>
> I obtained a number of baluns from him to use on my equipment.  They cost like $3 or $4 from places like Radio Shack and like 10 cents each in the quantities that the cable television people used to purchase.
>
> The baluns that came from the cable television industry definitely make it down to 160 meters and do a pretty good job all the way to the bottom of the AM broadcast band.
>
> Glen, K9STH