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-1-1500 is a 1:1 balun kit used to translate a 50 ohm unbalanced input to 50 ohms unbalanced at power levels up to 1500 watts PEP when used with a matched load. With a matched load the SWR will not exceed 1.5 over the frequency range 1.8 to 30 MHz. 1,500 PEP watt rating on a 25% duty cycle.
The kit consists of a F240 ferrite core, two colors of selected insulated wire, two SO-239 connectors (one for input and one for output connections) with stainless steel hardware, and an illustrated instruction manual with directions to assemble the kit as a 1 to 1 balun (unbalanced coax to balanced antenna/load) or unun (unbalanced to unbalanced). Leave one of the SO-239 connectors off on the output side and connect to your balanced antenna (dipole, beam driven elements, etc). To use as a line isolator/common mode choke, use both SO-239 connectors and insert in series with the coax feed line. For best results use one at the antenna and one for the rig side at the antenna tuner. The number of turns on the toroid can be changed to emphasize the low, mid or high portion of the 160-10 meter bands range as well as the choking impedance (see graph below). Assembly time is about 30 minutes. You can vary the number of turns to emphasize different frequency ranges.
BA-1-1500 Choking Z magnitude – 14 Turns and 10 Turns
Just add your custom enclosure, or optional enclosure box below, with the kit and you have a compete 1:1 current balun/unun.
Likewise Termination Resistor values vary from 500-1250 ohms and we have a good selection shown HERE: