Feeder prior to 1950 or 1940

[gm0ekm cecil]

I was given a reel of cable in the mid 1980's by a Shetland radio amateur who was a V.I. and latterly seconded to the RAF during WW II. The cable is a twin insulated feeder enclosed in high grade copper braid. This feeder along with a RG213 coaxial cable goes under a road to my antennas some 70 metres from my station. The twin feeder from my 80m delta loop is tuned via a Z-match in the station tuning from 80m. to 10m. I have never had any need to replace the feeder system, working a large number of dx stations all over the world.

[Richard675]

Originally Posted by Malcolm T

Wasn't there an installation up at North Weald Essex with numerous towers i remember seeing several times many years ago ?.

That was the old BT International station, Ongar Radio, providing worldwide HF radio services, mainly maritime, ship to shore.

[arjoll]

Originally Posted by Oldmadham

In Australia, Domestic TV antenna feeds were 300 Ohm ribbon, up to the early 1970s, when 75 ohm coax & "Belling Lee" connectors took over

Originally Posted by winston_1

Not only Australia, 300Ω twin feeder was common in continental Europe in the 60's.

300 ohm ribbon was common in New Zealand into the early 90s. We also generally only saw VHF tuners until the mid 80s. Pretty much every TV had a PAL/Belling-Lee connector and came with a plug-in 300-75R balun.

The first UHF broadcasts were one or two of the regional TV3 transmitters, then Sky's first UHF VideoCrypt service on three channels.

I upgraded my parents' place to coax around 90 or 91, just after TV3 started off Hedgehope, with a Dick Smith "air spaced" coax. When it first came on-air they still had a 3 element channel 1 aerial with the director cut down in the mid 70s so it gave reasonable reception of TV2/South Pacific on channel 3. It was no good on channel 7 for TV3, so dad replaced the aerial, then I replaced the feeder.

A couple of rooms were still fed by ribbon when I left for university - I only cabled up to the lounge and my bedroom, putting one of the obsolete plug-in baluns backwards in the ceiling to feed the old system.

[m0cemdave]

I have found the following page, which may be of interest, in an old Telcon catalogue dated 1950:

[Peter.N.]

I use twin feeder on my main HF amateur radio antenna. Its a dipole about 150' in length centre fed with 300 ohm feeder and a 4-1 balun on the input to the ATU. It will tune up well on most bands but any problems can usually be cured by shortening or lengthening the feeder.

I also have a 'holiday' 40m approx dipole made from twin flat blue telephone wire, the cable was split to give around 20m overall and the rest of it being used as the feeder. With an old 'Easymatch' tuner it gives pretty well spot on SWR on 20, 40, and 80m

Peter