[Premium-Rx] Antenna Couplers

[Arthur Shulman]

Building your own mulicoupler can be an intesting experience as I found when I
constructed my own 8-port unit a few months ago. I did this mainly because I
wanted to experiment with the concept, and the cost of a manufactured unit was
more than I could justify.
The goal was to provide a few db over unity gain over a range of 100 khz to 30
mhz; not too demanding, I think.
The first task was to construct the 6 interstage coupling transformers. By
experiment, I settled on tiny ferrite decoupling beads for core material; testing
showed a reasonably flat response with 2 turns of # 30 wire for primary &
secondary.
The amplifiers were Minicircuits MAR-4SM devices, chosen for simplicity of use,
acceptable noise figure, and ease of use.
The entire assembly was done on a piece of perf-board with copper pads, and
installed inside a CATV 8-port splitter after removing the innards. For
convenience, the original cast F connectors were left in place and used.
Although I have not had the opportunity to compare this simple device with a
commercial product, to date, its operation satisfies my needs and I have not
noticed any unwanted effects from the absence of critical design.

Arthur Shulman VE3ZV

Ben Wallace wrote:

> I've been looking into antenna couplers.  I need to feed a number of
> receivers from a single antenna.
>
> Are most couplers unity gain?  Any comments or recommendations from the group?
>
> Thanks -- Ben
>
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