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.
The Bullet-2-1-500EB (500 watts PEP) or the SBULLET-2-1-1500EB (1500 watts PEP) are both multi-core, 2:1 (50 ohm to 100 ohm) baluns plus a 1:1 feed line choke in a single compact (looks like a bullet) enclosure that is lightweight and easy to transport for your fixed/portable.
Very useful for single band horizontal or vertical loop antenna systems. Halyard hoist at top of balun for convenient attachment point. Input is via SO-239 UHF coax connector and output with side eye bolt output.
For multi-band loop antennas consider the Bullet-4-1-500EB or SBULLET-4-1-1500EB
Remember we over engineer our products, to out perform our competition - just compare the weight and frequency range of our baluns to theirs and you will know we put much more into our products so you don't have to worry about failure at a critical moment.
Likewise Termination Resistor values vary from 500-1250 ohms and we have a good selection shown HERE: