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 RFI-HTS kit is specifically designed to cure most home theater/audio/video systems triggered by Radio Frequency Interference problems generated by AM/FM, CB and Ham radio transmitters or other consumer electronic devices. The ferrite filters are selected to eliminate RFI from 1 to 300 MHz. The ferrites are easy to use, don’t require modification of the protected equipment and work in almost all cases.
What is included in the kit?The RFI-HTS kit contains a selection of ferrites for 4 AC powered units such as cable/satellite box, HDTV, amplifier system, DVD/BlueRay player and powered sub-woofer. RFI at lower frequencies typically comes through the AC power lines acting as “antennas” picking up the interference signal and these ferrite compositions have been specifically selected to suppress this interference. Also included are snap-on ferrites in 1/2" (4) and 3/8″ (4) hole size to accommodate various interconnect and speaker wires. An instruction sheet is included with typical installation examples.
TECH NOTE: We also stock RFI kits to protect effected devices such as garage door openers, computers (laptops, desktops), dsl/cable routers, ethernet hubs and many more devices.Remember there is always a “transmitter” and a “receiver” of RFI and the quest is to find and choke the “path” the RFI has selected – you need to add ferrites to both the transmitting side and the receiving side to eliminate RFI problems. The RFI-HTS kit only helps suppress RFI on the receiving side.
Typical RFI Problem/Solution:
Hello, I am Larry, a ham operator and I am having interference issues with my Direct TV system. My station is a FT450D through an Ameritron ALS-600. From the amp through a coax switch to choose between an OCF dipole or an Hustler 5BTV vertical. Any power over 100 watts and my DTV goes off the air and must completely reboot/format. Coax is RG-8. The DTV dish is pointed away from the dipole and separated by about 25'. DTV was totally useless! They suggested I not talk on the radio while she is watching TV! Please help me with a reasonable, cost effective soultion. (The wife gets really pissed when I shutdown the tv!) Thank you, Larry
Hi Larry,
Your RFI problem is quite common and is usually a sign of either a radiating coax feed line or reception of your radiated signal (source) by the Direct TV (the victim) through either the AC power lines acting as “antennas” for your ham signal or the coax braid of the satellite antenna acting as an antenna for your signal.
The solutions are straight forward using our home theater system RFI kit.
Likewise Termination Resistor values vary from 500-1250 ohms and we have a good selection shown HERE: