[Lowfer] Re: antenna info

[John Andrews]

Jay, et al:

Your message about the Cat 5 receiving feedline brings to mind something
that I briefly tried over the winter, and want to explore more
quantitatively before next season.

I am presently using RG-58 to as a feedline from a balanced antenna to a
balanced input on my in-the-shack preamp. Since I'm in the broadcast audio
business, it occurred to me that this was a pretty dumb approach.

Canare makes a great microphone cable for professional audio use with
balanced mikes and balanced inputs. They use the copyrighted term "Star
Quad" for their method of laying out the conductors in the cable. You can
find out more about it at:
http://www.canare.com/cablemainframe.html
Just follow the links for "Star Quad."

This is not a "Monster Cable" kind of thing. This is a standard professional
audio product. The characteristic impedance (for what it's worth) is about
45 ohms.

Anyway, I borrowed an unfortunately too-short length of Canare L-4E6S cable
from work, and tried it with the loop. I wired it as I would for a broadcast
application, using the white wires connected together at each end, and the
blue wires connected together at each end. I grounded the shield at the
shack end ONLY, to prevent a ground loop.

Since the cable was short, I had to run it through an open window, and it
was too darn cold to keep the test up forever. My conclusion was that I
seemed to get a little less local electrical noise with the mike cable.

When I get a chance, I'll order some cable long enough for my regular path
into the house, and will try some meaningful comparisons between it and the
RG-58. This would represent the ultimate in keeping-things-balanced with my
setup. I'll post the results here.

John Andrews