[Elecraft] B&W Folded Dipole over an Armory

[Dave Heil]

The U.S. Department of State uses many of these B&W folded dipoles in 
Africa and other nations with HF transceivers meant to be used by those 
with little or no radio operations experience.  All the user needs do is 
consult a list of places and frequencies (which are all programmed into 
memory), key the microphone and talk.  These antennas weren't made to 
work DX and neither were the transceivers.  Any easy way to make up for 
the inefficiency is to switch on one of the 500 or 1000 matching 
amplifiers, none of which requires manual band switching or tuning up.

Dave K8MN

On 13-Aug-17 19:36, Fred Jensen wrote:
> Ummm ... let's be truthful here.  The B&W folded dipole can be found in 
> radio catalogs from the 50's.  We all knew [I was a kid with a new 
> license then and even I knew] that the doohicky at the center of the top 
> wire was a 400 or so ohm non-inductive resistor, and half the power [3 
> dB] heated it up...