[Boatanchors] Need a really cheap 4:1 balun (receive only)

[Glen Zook]

Television baluns these days need to go down to at least 5 MHz.  For the article about using them go to

http://k9sth.com/uploads/TV_baluns.pdf

One balun that works quite well sells for 50 cents in single quantities and for less in quantities of 10 is the one sold by Parts Express.

The balun is the 4th item from the top at

http://www.parts-express.com/wizards/searchResults.cfm?FTR=balun&search_type=main&WebPage_ID=3&searchFilter=balun&x=18&y=7

Most of the baluns that make it down to 5 MHz usually go much lower, all the way to the broadcast band.

Last week an operator asked me about baluns and then ordered some of the Parts Express ones.  I got an E-Mail from him saying that on his HQ-150 the strength on 80-meters of his Apache spotting went from S-2 to S-7 just by inserting the balun.

My experiences with the baluns is stated in the article.

Now really old baluns may definitely have problems because they only had to make it down to television Channel 2.  Today, because of various signaling, baluns have to make it down to at least 5 MHz.

Glen, K9STH

Website:  http://k9sth.com


--- On Sat, 8/13/11, Phil KO6BB <KO6BB at sbcglobal.net> wrote:

I have the need for a really cheap 4:1 balun to match a ladder line fed  dipole to a receiver.  It doesn't need to look fancy, but it needs to  cover 1.8-30MHz (and down into the BCB band would be better). Yes I know  that the antenna won't 'really' be correctly matched across the entire  tuning range, but that isn't critical.
 
I've considered buying one of those 300/75 Ohm TV matching units, but I doubt that it'd really go low enough in frequency.