Hi Andrew, Don & all, I have a K3 (4520) and have recently installed a new antenna in the form of a "V" beam with the bisector at about 7 Degrees east of North, with the included angle at about 70 degrees and a leg length of 285Ft, height above ground is 70 to 75 Ft, with ground sloping down away to N & NE for 20Km.
I have found that using the KAT3 in the K3 and a BL2 Balun it is useable on all bands from 160 through to 6M with the worst VSWR of 1.5:1 showing up on 160 at 1860KHz. Reports from stations at, 1 to 5000 Km north from Emerald in the ranges 60 KM East of Melbourne in VK3 land give the "V" beam an advantage of 2 to 3 Sunits over the main antenna running NE to SW (A full sized 160M dipole at 105Ft, fed with OW line spced 6inches) . Reports run as follows:- 160M, generally 1 S unit down WR to the 160M dipole; 80M, equal to & sometimes 1 S unit better (on average) compared to the 160 M dipole appears to be dependent upon time of day & prop'n conditions; 40M, definitely better with 1 to 2 S units better most of the time (day or night); 30 M, definitely better by consistent 2 to 3 Sunits better at 3 to 5000Km; 20 M like 30 M consistently better than the 160 M dipole by 2 to 3 S units at 3 to 5000Km distance. The higher bands, with the V Beam I am hearing DX stations that are not even detectable on the 160 M dipole (8 & 24MHz), but, so far no definitive contacts made using the V beam to give a real evalution as yet. It has only been operational for about 10 days. Hope the foregoing is of interest, 73, From Eric VK3AX. On 9/29/2012 9:06 AM, Andrew Moore wrote: > Great; thank you for the trivia, very helpful. I figured it had already > been considered and that there was a good reason for the current > configuration. > > The BL2 following the KAT3 was exactly one option I was considering. I've > read about several cases in which ops had success, but read others in which > the balun was heating perhaps due to excessive reactance on the antenna > side. Reactance is likely dependent on the frequency/band and several > factors in the antenna system which could explain the mixed results. > > I think I will try this approach and enjoy the experimenting. > > All: Not looking to turn this in to an OT antenna theory thread, but if you > have specific experience with this configuration, I'd like to hear (KAT3 to > BL2 to ladder to simple dipole). > > Thanks, > --Andrew, NV1B > maineware.net > .. > > > On Fri, Sep 28, 2012 at 6:43 PM, Don Wilhelm <[email protected]> wrote: > >> Andrew, >> >> A bit of 'trivia' first: >> That was "supposed" to be a solution in the KAT500 tuner. The initial >> design put the balun on the input of the tuner, and attempted to "float" >> the rest of the tuner while trying to maintain balance. >> >> There were problems with maintaining balance through the rest of the >> tuner, while studies indicated there was no efficiency difference between >> the balun at the input vs. the balun at the output, so the design was >> changed to an unbalanced design driving (if required or desired) a balun at >> the output of the tuner. >> >> "trivia off": >> >> So more specific to your question, a balanced output from the K3 KAT3 can >> easily be obtained by using an Elecraft BL2 on the output side of the KAT3. >> >> > ______________________________________________________________ > Elecraft mailing list > Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft > Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm > Post: mailto:[email protected] > > This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net > Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html > ______________________________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:[email protected] This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
