[Elecraft] KX1 Antenna Idea

[Charles Greene]

Martin,

I went up in my attic with a ruler and this is what I found for some feed 
lines I made:

#24 stranded, silver plated teflon insulted, with about one twist per inch.

#26 , same type, about two twists per inch.

#28 solid, silver plated teflon insulated wire wrap wire about one twist 
per inch plus a heat shrink tube about every two inches.

All are close spaced.

I also have about 1000' of #26 solid as above that would work too, or I 
could use if for a near invisible antenna.

A good source of similar wires to above is eBay.

GL

73, Chas

At 10:58 AM 9/10/2005, Martin Gillen wrote:
>Hi, Chuck.
>
>I have a question about your feedline:
>
> > I have made up some feedline using #28 teflon
>insulated
> > solid wire wrap wire held together with heat shrink
> > tubing. The characteristic impedance is not
>important and
> > it is low loss. I measured some #26 twisted pair
>once and
> > it's impedance is about 180 ohms.
>
>I know that coax can be looped around 5 times to
>create
>a balun near the dipole feedpoint.  Can twisted pair
>be looped around to create a balun also?

I don't see why not.  You probably would want to use a plastic juice bottle 
as a form, which I do anyway for coax.

>  Also, what
>was
>the distance between the twists?  I'm interested in
>making one to feed a dipole for my KX1 field ki


>How can you measure that a balun is being effective?

Measure impedance with an impedance meter.  the Z should be roughly 10 
times the impedance of the feed line.  Or else check antenna handbook and 
use the dimensions they give.  Note that the handbook is for coax, and a 
higher impedance feed line will take more turns.  Impedance is proportional 
to N^2.


>Thanks,
>Martin.
>va3sie at rac.ca