Post by Nick G4FALI have used two solutions to this which I am sure Reg will object to.
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Nick, goodness gracious, why should I object? They appear to be logical
engineering solutions. Your only mistake was starting in the first place
with a G5RV (if that's what you did) with its wicked length of coax. No
wonder it can be operated very occasionally on more than just the 20m band
(for which Mr Varney originally designed it) without a tuner.
In the past, having been in the same siuation myself, with the end of a
random-length dipole (which is what a G5RV is) not far from the bedroom
shack, the problem was solved by attaching the near end of the dipole to a
tall (TV) mast mounted on the house chimney. The other end of the dipole was
suspended from a 30-foot timber mast near the other end of the garden until
a teenage vandal hacked into one of the three clothes-line guy ropes just to
hear the terrific shuddering crash.
The dipole was fed at its near end over a single-wire, 600-ohm, transmission
line which descended dog's leg fashion down to window level. It was secured
in place by jamming it in the closed window. As it was a metal window frame
it was necessary to insulate the feedline with a few inches of electrician's
tape. The feedline then continued 3 or 4 feet direct to the tuner and
transmitter. I understand an end-fed dipole, when fed via a more-or-less
vertical single-wire transmission line, is often described as an
"Inverted-L". Or in a more dignified manner by referring to it as a
"Marconi".
Of course, there's radiation from the feedline but with a multi-directional
dipole anyway, there's nothing wasted. I had one case of TVI. But that was
due to the next-door neighbour's TV-repairer fogetting to replace the IF
amplifier's screening can. Easily fixed. The neighbour was a dentist but I
always used somebody who lived further away.
The tuner consisted of a tapped coil, close-wound with 20-gauge enamelled
wire on an empty toilet roll tube, a variable 500pF receiving-type
capacitor, a pile of various-length connecting leads terminated with mini
crocodile clips, and then to the home-brew transmitter which was eventually
upgraded to a TS-520 and finally modified to death.
As you know, with an Inverted-L, a modest ground connection is needed. This
was provided by drilling a hole in the bedroom floor boards and extending a
copper braid down to the domestic incoming water-main lead pipe with its
water meter, plus the substantial sheath of the incoming 50Hz power supply
cable. Overall length, including ground ground connection, was about 0.3
wavelengths on 160m.
These conveniently located ground connections (in the garage) were connected
to thousands of miles of countless numbers of radials buried under our Great
but now Deprived City of Birmingham. (For they who are unfamiliar with world
geography - it's the original B'ham.) Using the radiating and ground
system desribed above I have indeed worked into the other B'ham which
according to the song is situated "Way Down South in Alabam". The QSL card
was lost during a house move.
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Reg, G4FGQ