Broad Band Terminated Dipoles (BBTD), Tilted Terminated Fold Dipoles (T2FD) and Balanced Termination Folded Dipole BTFD) antennas can be designed to cover a large range of frequencies between 1.8 30 MHz. Longer length antennas generally provide better low frequency efficiency but take up a larger footprint of land. One BBTD that has worked well at the AK6R antenna farm is shown below. Many other designs are available and can be found at www.HFLINK.COM as well as other internet sites. Your mileage may vary using this antenna, but as a general coverage antenna for ham and shortwave broadcast, the simplicity can’t be beat even though an individual dipole on a specific band may out perform this broad band dipole. Palomar Engineers has all the parts you need to build this antenna, so why not give it a try?
Depending on the source of the antenna design, different value baluns are specified. Our Bullet(TM) baluns in ratios of 9:1, 12:1 and 16:1 are excellent for this type of antenna as they are broadband from 1.8-61 MHz and will take up to 500 watts PEP.
Model BA-4-250 is a 4:1 voltage balun/Unun kit (assembly required from parts supplied) used to translate a 50 ohm input up to 200 ohms at power levels up to 250 watts when used with a matched load. With a matched load the SWR will not exceed 2:1 over the frequency range 1.8 to 30 MHz.
The kit consists of a 1.4" diameter ferrite core, two colors of insulated wire. a UHF connector with stainless steel hardware, and an instruction manual with directions to connect the kit as a 4 to 1 balun (balanced coax to balanced antenna like zepp or from 450 ohm feeder line to coax for a tuner) or 4 to 1 unun (unbalanced coax to unbalanced antenna like end fed or random wire).
This balun will also transform at 4:1 for a wide variation of load impedances. Shown below are AIM 4170 SWR results for a 200 ohm load. This balun gives near perfect transformation through 30 Mhz with a SWR under 1.25 . Light blue vertical bars are ham bands starting at 160 meters at left to 10 meters at right.
Likewise Termination Resistor values vary from 500-1250 ohms and we have a good selection shown HERE: