[Elecraft] KX1 Antenna Idea

[Dan Romanchik]

Hi again--

Last night, I worked a guy who also is a KX1 owner, and we 
got to talking about antennas. I mentioned that while the 
antenna suggested in the antenna tuner manual (24-28-ft. 
driven element with a 16-ft. counterpoise) tunes up OK, I 
was kind of disappointed in the performance. The other guy 
mentioned that he uses a 40-meter doublet, usually in an 
inverted vee configuration, fed with ladder line, and that 
it tunes up well on all three bands.

I asked him whether or not he used a balun, and he said no, 
he just fed it directly into the radio. I suppose his 
antenna could be fairly well-balanced or that the KX1 is 
able to tolerate a fair amount of imbalance.

Whatever the case, I was thinking that it shouldn't be too 
difficult to build a small balun--and it really could be a 
small one since the maximum power level it needs to handle 
is just 5W--into a small plastic project box. On one end, 
the box would have two binding posts to connect the ladder 
line, and a panel-mount male BNC (if they make such a thing) 
on the other.

Does this seem reasonable to do or is it overkill?

73!

Dan KB6NU
===================================================
President, ARROW Comm. Assn. (www.w8pgw.org)
ARRL MI Section Affiliated Club Coordinator
Candidate for GL Division Vice Director, Fall 2005
Read my ham radio blog at www.kb6nu.com