Ham Radio Forum

The 108 to 174 MHz vertical VHF antenna at the Salt Lake City receiving site has been raised a couple feet higher and the feed-line has been changed from RG-6 quad-shielded 75-ohm coax to balanced 300-ohm twin-lead. Both those changes should have relatively minor effects on performance because the antenna was already hundreds of feet above the valley floor and RG-6 is low-loss feed-line. They were made because the coax cable was needed for a new 10-meter vertical that is being installed and because another antenna change made it possible to raise the antenna slightly.

There seems to be less local noise pickup with the balanced feed-line, but it may be that the ambient noise level just happens to be lower than usual right now. Also, the KXI30 162.475 MHz NOAA Weather Radio FM signal from Wendover, Nevada, 113 miles west of here, is several s-units higher than normal, but it fades from time-to-time and the earth-reflected signal component probably just happen to be closer to in-phase at the new antenna height, so that probably isn