Quest on homebrew ladder line

[Steve - K4HX]

Agreed. There will be no difference between the G5RV and the ZS6BKW. The latter just frees you from a tuner. Also, when fed properly, there will be no difference between a full-sized dipole and a G5RV.

Your G5RV system is resonant. That's what the tuner is doing. 

I don't see how a coil loaded set up will do any better than the G5RV, especially since you have 7/8 HL (if I read that right) from the tower to your station. But as Rob said, if all coax is what you want, just let the ends hang vertically a little and you can have a full size dipole. Making a high-Q, low loss coil is not easy and they will be big and also weigh a lot. Then you have to weatherize them or corrosion reduces the Q and loss goes up.

[Opcom]

BalUns work fine when the rules are followed.

Many people wrote and said that the best way to go balanced from an unbalanced radio setup is to put a 1:1 balun before a balanced tuner (I plan to do that).


For getting the individual wires of the ladder line into the building, I used ceramic tube insulators. These are ceramic type, thick wall, of the "knob and tube" ceramic wiring hardware used in past times.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knob_and_tube
 - or see the attachment
They can still be found at junk shops and flea markets for almost nothing. PVC might be OK but the insulators were on hand already.

[Opcom]

here's the pics I was looking for. It shows using ceramic tubes though a thin wall and a way to prevent the ladder leads from slipping out of the tubes and falling from the wall to the ground as could happen if I disconnect the indoor line alligator clips for any reason. The soldered-on lugs can't fit through the washers, so the line can only move so much. This does not support a long run of line, but it could if beefed up a little, maybe with a hose clamp around each ceramic tube. The goo is rubber cement.

A large military 3PDT switch mounted inside a plastic tool box grounds the ladder line when not in use. The third section isn't used, I thought it might be good in case I run a coax. in from a tower mounted discone or something tall. The two wires going to the left are a short piece of ladderline running up to the ceramic tubes insulators mentioned.