Balun Support

[W8HDU]

I made this little balun support from stuff I had picked up in the shop this afternoon. It's made from some aluminum bar material, part of an old cutting board, some hardware, and ty-straps.

I needed to support a 1:1 balun under the driven element of my Cushcraft A3S that I'm rebuilding. As you can see in the pictures on my article Simple Balun Support (http://hf-antenna.com/017/), the old balun is pretty bad after 20 years of use.

The one thing I wanted to do was properly support the balun so it wasn't flopping around in the wind.

This year I've taken it upon myself to completely rebuild my antenna system, and try to document all the antennas I've made over the years.

[a71an]

Thank you for this interesting post, I like this support, the one I had are both supplied by DXEngineering but I still need one for my yagi, I will try to do the same one you showed on the post.


Thank you again my friend

[W8HDU]

A little closer to getting on the air.

I installed the balun support and the balun on the antenna today.

Next is to replace the plastic caps, (which are cracked from sun exposure), and then retune the antenna elements.

As soon as I get the 6-meter antenna built, and the Ham IV rotor installed, I'm ready to operate again. :)

73 de W8HDU

PS: The plastic bag is over the back of the balun to protect the connector till installed. We're in our "rainy" season in Ohio. :)

[a71an]

Great job my friend.


What you advice to protect the antennas from the birds nesting on them all of the time, I do have this problem here, do you have on your country rubber of plastic Owl which I can order ?

http://www.dxqsl.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=359&stc=1&d=1239565855

[k7vc]

I have had a full-size model of an owl at the top of my antennas since I first put them up. Unfortunately, not only do the birds ignore it, I've often seen several of them sitting on its head!

A friend of mine explained that the idea is to make the birds think one of their natural predators is "guarding" the antennas. Unfortunately, common birds are not the natural prey of owls. Mice, lizards, snakes, yes. Birds, no.

On the one hand I've never had a problem with snakes on my antennas, but I'm still not sure how to keep the birds away. :)

Dick

[a71an]

This mean there is no way out of the birds problems with the antennas:)

Any other ideas without disturbing the way the house look:)))

[W8HDU]

I'm afraid that Dick is right. I have tried the owl at my house, and at work, and the birds seem to not see it as a threat. Probably because it doesn't move. If they made one that stretched its wings and screeched I think it would get their attention.

If they are walking on your antenna wire, I've found that making a paste of Vasoline and chyan pepper and putting a thin coat on the wire sometimes drives them off. Excuse my ignorance of your country, but I'm willing to bet that there is some fruit or vegetable like the chyan pepper that is insanely hot. This might annoy the birds enough to leave.

For beams, the only thing I have found is to run some non-conductive very thin fishing line tightly over the boom of the beam. My drawing is not so good, but start at each end of the antenna, and run to the mast pipe. At the mast pipe, the fishing line should be about 4-6cm apart. What this does it makes it hard for them to land. The smaller the better, and usually 4 or 5 runs does it. If they can't land on the boom, this discourages them.

Since fishing line is cheap, you can also run it from the ends of the elements to a small wood or plastic piece in the boom as well, to keep them off the elements.

I had to do this up at our summer home because a bird native to the U.S. called the Starling would not only try to build a nest on the boom of the antenna over the driven elements, but they would sit on the antenna and make a mess under it.

[VK2UW]

Have Withdrawn

[PD4U]

On the one hand I've never had a problem with snakes on my antennas, but I'm still not sure how to keep the birds away. :)
Dick

Maybe take the owl away, so that the snakes crawls in the antenna, which keeps the birds away :)

Birds like the crow and its family (raven, magpie, etc) are far too smart too be fooled by mockup birds. They are too curious and start to "investigate" things, and draw their conclusion after a while...

Maybe one should try to play the sound of a predator like the eagle, or maybe better play the distress calls the birds (that nest on the antenna) make themselves when alarmed.

See for birdsounds: http://www.naturesongs.com/birds.html

Marc

[W8HDU]

Our local hospital has something where there is the sound of a hawk screeching, and then occasionally the sound of another bird in distress. It does seem to work.

If there are any pigeons in the trees, they seem to either fly off fast or get down close in the tree. It seems to annoy them a lot.

On the other hand, the sidewalks are clean. :D