Not being a huge TADXer I recently had the opportunity to have a few late nights (or is that early mornings) which gave me the time and the band conditions to try some TADX. Going back in time I used to spend many late nights armed with my Kenwood R2000 and shortwave magazine looking for these elusive TA stations which “popped” up for everybody all the time it seemed! From the logs I could see that WINS on 1010 kHz and CJYQ on 930 kHz should be simple catches with my “DX” setup! Back then I knew that you needed an outside aerial and an ATU … That was it! TADX only happened at night and that it needed to be the depth of winter before you would hear anything. Fast forward and with the improvement in receivers, aerials and knowledge the TADX season seems longer and a lot more can be heard – if you spend enough time in headphones replaying that toth identification over and over.

It’s pretty easy with the Internet to get an idea of how well flags, pennants and beverages work for TADX and I must admit I am in awe of some of the logs and recordings I hear from people in QRM/QRN quieter parts of the UK and EU. Ken and David (Ken a big Perseus lover) I salute your logs! A true inspiration; to anyone who wants to try out TADX. And that is me included!

So what have I done then? Armed with my trusty 1.1 meter Wellbrook loop and Perseus I hit the medium wave band in the early hours. A quick scan of the 10 kHz channels in waterfall mode allows you to see the TADX carrier’s in-between the UKs 9 kHz spaced stations. A wondrous sight as they are pretty much inaudible but very visible on the waterfall. A godsend; no doubt to serious TADXers.

I’ve uploaded a few stations which I know to true TADXers are regarded as “easys” but for my 1.1 meter loop I am pretty impressed!

My logs for the night include:

880   WCBS New York
920   CKNX Wingham
1010 WINS New York (very deep fades over the 1/2hr I was listening)
1010 CFRB Toronto
1030 WBZ Boston
1050 WEPN New York
1200 CFGO Ottowa
1320 CJMR Mississauga
1390 WEGP Talk Radio (could have been a local at one point)
1430 WENE Endicott
1430 CHKT Toronto
1470 WLAM Lewiston
1500 WFED Washington
1510 WWZN Boston
1520 WWKB Buffalo
1700 KVNS Brownsville

Have a listen to the mp3’s below and see what you think. Not bad for such a modest setup would you not agree?

1520kHz wwkb.mp3

1010kHz cfrb.mp3

1030kHz wbz.mp3

880kHz wcbs.mp3

1390kHz wegp.mp3

When looking at running a random wire of any length the question of if to use a balun or not always comes up. Since they appeared in the early 90’s people have raved that feeding a random wire with a balun and coax is much better than bringing the feed line into the house where the QRM is much higher. Remembering back in the 90’s when there was not that many noisy plasma TVs or switched mode laptop PSUs or even the dreaded PLT using a random wire and bringing it into the shack via the window frame never seemed an issue. Fast forward to 2009 and with all the noise generated in a modern shack means that a coax fed antenna does have many advantages.  I am not going to enter into the variable resistance of random wires across HF and is 4:1 better than 9:1 – there are many sites on Google that cover this subject with much greater flair in technical depth that I could ever hope to.

Going back 15 years I was at a rally where the RF systems HF balun was for sale – and after reading some “spin” about the product and then seeing that in the very noisy hall signals were in fact not so masked by noise as at other stands where the antennas were directly fed into the radio. This stand was using a balun and a direct feed side by side where you could switch between them. Most interesting to me at the time! I had my first HOKA Code30 and a PC and a very nice (at the time) 17” screen – all which generated a larger amount of QRM than I really wanted. Enter the RF systems balun. A quick £40.00 later and I was the owner of a very small round item that would cure my shack noise on HF, wonderful!

A quick change in antenna layout at the QTH meant now my 40meter wire was fed with the balun and at the time some pretty decent double screened RG58. Quick tests showed that it was better, and yes the noises that splattered about HF were in fact gone! Well worth that hard earned £40.00. And has ever since then worked very well from QTH to QTH my trusty balun has always fed the random wire into the shack. 

This brings about today’s thinking - is my RF systems balun the best there is? Are there better baluns? Could I change it and notice a difference? Well they are some very good questions I asked myself! And you too should be asking yourself! Could my balun be good but could it be better?

A Google for baluns and peoples comments led me to have a look at the Wellbrook UMB. Now these are just a little more money than the RF systems balun but and it is a big but. I am so impressed with my Wellbrook ALA330S that I was already convinced that if they can make a loop that good surely they could make a better balun?

A quick search on eBay and volia! I was the proud owner of a Wellbrook UMB. Comparing the two physically the RF systems balun has an SO239 one end and a twisty on pole/stud the other end for the antenna, the UMB has a BNC (ugggh) coax connector and two twisty pole/studs for earth and the antenna.

Swapping the first balun out for the other was easy, I already had an earth running up to the body of the SO239 on the RF systems balun which was unwound from the coax and then connected to one pole of the UMB and the antenna swapped over to the other connector. The coax was terminated with a PL259 and not wishing to unsolder this I used a SO239 to BNC adaptor – I know not ideal but it was a test ok!

Before the change over I took three screenshots from Perseus with a spread of signals around LF and MF which I always find are a good test. I’ve added the screenshots in order which are before and after. Have a look and see what you think. I’ll do some more tests later on with the HF bands when there are actually some signals to test against. QRM wise I am pretty lucky that a quick sweep of HF shows they are more or less identical in the reduction of the local noises I have here.

Medium wave 1.6Mhz spread RF systems balun. (fullsize in the gallery)

Medium wave 1.6Mhz spread Wellbrook balun. (fullsize in the gallery)

If you check the qallery you'll see the rest of the screenshots taken this morning.

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