John & Paddy Wigney wrote:
>
> Boy, is this forum great or what ? Thanks Troy for the instant reply and
> advice
> on the Jim Weir article; I have found it already. I probably overlooked it
> since I didn't know what a diplexer is. I think I know now. "A panel mount
> connector which automatically disconnects the inop radio and connects the
> handheld directly to the antenna." Sounds like a good trick to me, Jim even
> explains how you can check out the device with a patch cable to ensure that it
> works OK before you feel the need to cut the main coax.
Cool, except it's putting some insertion loss into your antenna. A
proper RF connector, vs the kludge item from Radio Schlock, is .5 db
loss. You can better utility from a second antenna. Copper tape, or
just split RG-58 into 21 inches of center wire and 21" of braid.
Affix to fuse side with RTV. Forget the ferrites or poorer
bandwidth. It will still work much better than the rubber ducky,
which is basically a dummy load with incidental antenna
characteristics.
Best,
Fred F.
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