Understanding 4:1 Baluns and UNUNs for Amateur Ham Radio Antennas
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- Опубликовано: 31 дек 2023
- In this video, we dive deep into the topic of optimizing ham radio antennas by exploring the incredible power of 4:1 baluns and UNUNs. A 4:1 balun (balanced to unbalanced) or UNUN (unbalanced to unbalanced) plays a crucial role in matching impedances and ensuring efficient signal transmission. By utilizing these devices effectively, you can significantly enhance the performance of your ham radio antennas.
Throughout this informative video, we will discuss the principles behind these essential components and shed light on their benefits. Join us as we delve into the technical aspects, including impedance matching, frequency ranges, and various design considerations. Learn how to select the most suitable 4:1 balun or UNUN for your specific antenna setup, considering factors such as power handling capacity, desired bandwidth, and the type of feedline used.
With our step-by-step guidance, you'll gain valuable insights into the practical application of 4:1 baluns and UNUNs, enabling you to optimize your ham radio antennas like never before. Whether you are a seasoned ham radio enthusiast or just starting out, this video offers a wealth of knowledge to help you take your antenna performance to new heights.
Don't miss out on harnessing the full potential of your ham radio station! Watch our engaging video now and unlock the secrets behind the 4:1 baluns and UNUNs. Hit that subscribe button and enable notifications to stay updated with our upcoming videos discussing the fascinating world of ham radio antenna optimization.
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The clearest explanation of the difference I have ever heard. It takes freal genius to explain things directly like this. Thank you Mr Ape.
Thanks LC, I pride myself on looking smarter than I really am!
@@TheSmokinApe What he said. Thanks, Professor!
@@wushock92 Thanks Phillip 👍
Exceptional explanation. The schematic drove it home. Thank you. Side note - I can't speak for others, but I always find it helpful to see what you do when things don't go to plan (like many of my trials). I always get stuck on how to fix it. Really good content.
Thanks for the feedback, I’m glad you liked the video 👍
I freaking needed this video. I’ve been trying to figure this out for a while now. This explanation makes it all make sense now.
Thank you, glad you liked the video and that it was helpful 👍
This is by far the easiest to understand explanation I have seen, I am no longer confused. Your videos have been so helpful, thank you!!!
Glad it was helpful, thanks for watching 👍
Thank you for explaining this in a way that is a better, clearer, and more helpful than any other balun/unun video I've encountered.
Thanks Kumasu, glad you like it 👍
Thanks for the excellent video, you clarified the difference between balun and unun. A lot of people talk about them but never explain which of them is used for what purpose 👍👍
Thanks Beaver, glad you liked it!
Thanks. These are so similar and a lot of hams use "baluns" for their off-center-feds that this clarification is much appreciated. Cheers and happy new year.
That's exactly why I made it, glad you liked it and thanks for watching!
Thank you. That clears a lot up for me regarding the difference between
BALUNs and UNUNs and their use.
Hey Gary. Glad it was helpful 👍
As a former Navy ET who worked on10Kw HF transmitters, I nodded through the whole video. Well said and shown.
Thanks Dan, glad you liked it 👍
Click. I just got it. After all these years - now I understand. Thank you.
Awesome Tim, glad it was helpful!
Awesome. Clarence clarified these the best that I've ever seen.😊👍
lol, thanks Don!
Another great video Ape. Always learning something!
In a past life, I wound many toroids and ran the long-nosed plies along the wire to scrap away some of the enamel. Once this was done it was relatively easy to burn away the remainder of the enamel while tinning the wire.
Hey ZH. I was always using the razor which sucked, it's all Dremel all the time now!
Great, thanks, needed your diagrams to understand. K7DT Old ham,1962. It's about time I learned this😊
Hey Don, glad it was helpful 👍
Mr Ape, you are a legend, I was struggling on what the difference between the two were and what application they are used.
Hey Rob, glad the video was helpful!
Thanks for spreading the knowledge, this makes it easy to remember the use cases for which one. Great job Great video
Thanks BH, glad you liked the video 👍
So very thankful for this Ape, busting myths one upload at a time!
lol, thanks for watching Allen 👍
Thank you so much. This was so easy to understand the difference between the two
Thanks PB, glad you liked it 👍
Thanks! This was a great explanation and very helpful. I’ll probably watch this a few times, but now I’m getting it and the schematics make sense to me.
Thanks for the Super Thanks Mike! Glad the video was helpful 👍
Great video Ape. This helps clear up the mystery around UNUNs and BALUNs.
Hey Marvin, glad you liked it!
EXCELLENT! This is the best explanation of Balun vs. Unun on RUclips! You 100% answered the question I had,
(6:41 explains it perfectly!) Thanks much W8WIN
Thanks W8WIN, glad it was helpful 👍
Very informative. Explained a lot of magic. Thanks and 73
Thanks Bill, glad you liked it 🍻
Thanks for the deep-dive on Baluns and UnUns...especially the measurement technique! Happy New Year Ape!
Hay Fox, thanks for watching!
Great simple video showing the difference between the two! 73
Thanks Jeff 👍
I find this stuff fascinating.
Me too, thanks for watching Dave 👍
This is really timely! I'm looking to build a Delta loop with a couple of 17ft telescopic antennae at 90 degrees to each other and a wire across the two antenna tips. If I feed it at the base of the two antennae the feed impedance is 200R so will need a 4:1balun. So I'll be making one soon ready for when the WX improves a little. We have storms here at the moment.....
Another really great video :) 73!
Sounds like a cool build, good luck with it 👍
This is a great explanation!
Thanks TO, it seems that this is always a holy war topic 👀
I've always struggled with getting my head around these.... This video was my *aha!* Moment!! Haha thank you!
Thank you for the super thanks! Glad to hear the video was helpful 👍
Very good talk, good overview on baluns 😊
Thanks, glad you liked it 👍
GREAT video Ape. Let's encourage more to wind their own. It's simple and sure saves a ton of cash. PS. I like to use "crocus cloth" (aka plumbers sandpaper) to remove the varnish. In times of desperation, I've also used the tiny teeth of my needlenose plyers. Both are safer (for me) and provide less blood loss. LOL 73 OM
Good advice
That is a necessary blood sacrifice to the Ham Gods.
Hey Hollywood, glad you liked it! I agree, building antennas is; simple, economic and rewarding. I'm trying to fight the good fight by posting videos like this one 👍 moving forward I'm going to use the Dremel, was so much easier than the ole scrape routine!
I'd be happy with that trace. You can kind of encourage the "peak" to move one way or the other by adding or removing windings, but 8 is a pretty good number. Type 61 probably has a higher peak, but is almost certainly not worth the effort or may give trouble down on 40.
Agreed on all points, thanks for checking it out GDL 👍
👍Thank you sir.
Thanks for watching!
Good job Ape!!
Thanks BA, glad you liked it 👍
Thanks a lot, Mr Ape! I now wonder if I wound my last one as a unun or a balun… I guess the major difference is that a single wire does not have a return circuit… therefore using the shield as a return. I wonder if your 100 ohm resistance reflects then reality of a long wire. Best!!
Hey Denis, it was 200 ohm but yes a long wire would be different. I was using 200 because this is a 4:1 and I wanted to test against a 50 ohm system impedance.
Love it
Thanks!
Not all heros wear capes, but some heros are Apes!
Thank you for explaining not just the difference in where they're used (balanced vs unbalanced antenna) but more importantly what makes them different electrically. The schematic really REALLY helps. Coastal Waves has a short video that goes into where you'd use which one in practical use, but he doesn't mention anything about what electrically makes them different. As "The Dude" would say - this video really ties it together :D
So if I'm looking at this correctly, the units themselves are 100% identical, it's only how they're connected to the coax that's different. So you swap the pin / shield connections and a balun becomes an unun and vise versa? Obviously the ground connection stays with the coax, and I imagine in practice that ground connection would be made at the opposite end of the feedline at the lightning arrestor?
Yes, you are interpreting it correctly. Thanks for watching NotSure 👍
Hey Ape, you did a fantastic job in explaining the Baluns & UNUNs. It is just sad that I am so stupid to not understand any of this stuff, I am trying but, it is difficult. I just finished reading the ARRL Handbook on this stuff and still don't understand one dang thing. You make is sound so simple. Maybe you could suggest a good book to read that explains this stuff. Thank you again Ape for presenting this wonderful video.
Hey Janice, I am glad you liked the video. You shouldn't think that you are stupid, this is a little bit of a complex topic. I know folks who have been hams for decades and they don't grasp this type of material and being frank, there isn't much content like this on YT for the same reason. The Handbook and the antenna guide are probably the best resources for getting started but I never read them straight through, I use them are reference material when I want to review or learn a topic, that said I do look to them often. With the channel I do try very hard to take more complex topics and make them approachable so people can learn. Doing videos like this take many hours of preparation to ensure accuracy and to ensure it's consumable. This video in particular is really under the "I like to build antennas" umbrella and isn't really something folks "need" to know unless they want to build antennas. If you have any questions about building antennas feel free to email me thesmokinape@gmail.com. Also, check these two playlists which should help get you started:
Learn about Chokes, Baluns and UnUns for Ham Radio Antennas - ruclips.net/p/PLm8ROkpFeqoqkGQtBYfcT9Y-2GCKxBuuk
Antenna Builds for Ham Radio with TheSmokinApe - ruclips.net/p/PLm8ROkpFeqor1Q7c2-93HsDoWUFiugbta
@@TheSmokinApe
Smokin Ape you are the best, thank you so very much.@@TheSmokinApe
@@janiceemery2008 👍
Could you modify the Balun to give a 6:1, 8:1, 12:1 transformation of an unbalanced 50 Ohm coax line to a balanced line like window/ladder line? If so, how would you do it?
You could, but it would be a different design, I can add it to the list of videos to do... In cases where folks want to use balance line most of the time people use a 4:1 with a tuner.
@@TheSmokinApe Thanks, that would be interesting. I’ve read about antenna designs that have a 300 Ohm impedance (folded dipole etc) which would benefit from something like a 6:1 I imagine.
I'll do the 6:1 video at some point, thanks again PCF!
Great info Ape , looks like we on the way to a good antenna!
You damn right, I’m excited about this one!
Nice demo👍
Thanks for checking it out Jason 👍
Great explanation. Thanks loads!
Thanks for watching Joe 👍
nice job. I have made a 4:1 UNUN with a 2 stack T 240-61 cores wrap with #14 stranded PTFE . haven't mounted it yet. I may need cap? I find out when tune it. I made a mono band 5/8 wave end fed for 10 meters. 1/2 wave end fed is 49:1 and 3/4 wave is 1:1 . some of us hams think outside the box . the 4:1 Balun is used with off set fed dipole. normally 1/2 wave cut 1/3 and 2/3 wave length. The outher off set center dipole is cut 3/4 to 1/4 of a 1/2 wave total. I found when stacking toroid's using Kapton tape helps hold them in place. I found a nice winder base for T 240 core and so-239. nice to work with smaller wire. for QRO in the KW range need bigger and my fingers hurt from winding them. I can only wrap 1 big one per day about. 73's
Hey Robert. I’m with you, winding some of these cores kills my hands, I use 16g for my 49:1 and man lid that a doozy. I like to use stranded ptfe on my 9:1 and maybe on these 4:1 in the future because more surface area for the RF 👍
Pro Tips. Carbon film resistors have some of the least amount of inductance in them.
Also if you have a lot of different values of resistors, you can try searching for the next highest value over what you need. In this example, you want 200 ohms. You look in your collection. You have a 220 ohm resistor. Measure it. Let's say it's 220.
Now calculate. (200x220)/(220-200)=2200 ohms. Look in your collection for a 2200 ohm resistor. Tie those in parallel. There's your 200 ohm resistor. The added bonus is that it should be closer than what you have been getting and the inductances will decrease a bit.
Good luck.
This is great, thanks for the info BDRFI 👍🍻
Well presented, though the 4:1 balun has some serious limitations even with a perfectly symmetrical antenna. There is a better design using two separate cores (effectively 2 common mode chokes with their inputs in parallel and their outputs in series).
I upgraded to this 2 core design for my 40 meter loop. It busts through pileups like a champ
Hey g0fvt, I agree with your point, I wouldn't necessarily use this 4:1 Balun, but the point of this video was explaining the difference between a Balun and an UnUn and I wanted to illustrate that point in a demonstrable way. With an eye as discerning as yours, I am sure you saw that is a voltage balun and the general consensus these days is to use current baluns. Thanks for the comment and for watching bro!
@@TheSmokinApe not knocking your work at all, the schematics are exactly the ones I would use to explain the function. It is interesting to see how "fashion" changes so fast, in the mid 1980s when I got licenced I built a tuner influenced by designs in the ARRL handbook of the day. It took me 40 years to get round to stripping the balun out of it to recover the ferrite cores. A commercial tuner I have also has a "voltage balun" as do the bulk of them, I will leave that one as it is. (Just not use that output).
Well done on the video and schematics, keep up the good work for 2024 73
Hey g0fvt, not taking it as a knock at all. I very much appreciate feedback and comments from experienced hams such as yourself!
A current balun.
An easy way to strip the enamel off the wire is to burn to with a bic then use 100-240 grit sandpaper so you can see where its not clean.
I’ve been doing the dremel lately 👍
Great video Mr. Ape, I just wasn't clear on how you attached the Balun and unun to CH1, did you just push the centre wire into the SMA connector? I hope that makes sense. Happy New year by the way Buddy.
Hey Paddy, I connected it using that green BNC connector.
@@TheSmokinApe Ah of course, appreciate the reply. I couldn't see for looking I think. 👍🏽👍🏽👍🏽
Are these suitable to use on a sdr or overkill? Was thinking about trying an end feed style since my yard is small. Would like to listen in the 80 meter band. Thanks
I would look at using an End Fed Random wire (EFRW) antenna if I wanted to SDR RX 80m. I have a few videos on them: ruclips.net/p/PLm8ROkpFeqoo6xZzYJQl1OMbrKnqsiCew
Use a small strip of fine grit emery cloth to clean the wires
Not a bad idea 👍
So my question is the same as always on this subject: How do they work?
Baluns and Ununs are ham radio names for auto transformers. If you have a balun with 10 turns through the centre, you have 10 windings on the primary (half the coil) and 20 windings total (the full coil). Apply 100V to half the coil gives 10 volts a turn, so you get 200V across the entire coil.
The reason the impedance ratio is turns(voltage) ratio squared, is because power is V^2/R.
100^2 V / 50 ohm = 200W.
200^2 V / 200 ohm = 200W.
Thank you. Would this single core variant work equally as well as a 1:4 transformer (12.5ohms to 50 ohms step up, generally seen in physically short antennas as far as I understand), as it would a 4:1 (200 load down to 50 coax you’ve described)? I don’t think I would need choking capability, as I’m wanting something I can insert between twinlead feedline and either [Zmatch tuner with balanced input] OR [1:1 current BalUn into an unbalanced input tuner], to help the tuner out with increased tuning capability and efficiency for low impedance loads. … but it would be great if it also functioned equally as well for unbalanced loads.
I am fairly sure it’s possible, but it’s tricky to track down the most elegant solution haha
Thinking out loud, but I have one of those MFJ-911h doohickeys that you reviewed once a while back… maybe it’s as simple as wiring myself up a coax patch cable that reverses the polarity (connecting the center pin from one side to the shield on the other side, and vice versa), and putting the 911h into 4:1 mode? Maybe that will provide a 1:4 step-up transformation. Nothing else to wind… I appreciate your thoughts, but no pressure to have an answer!!
I think it would work for the use case you describe.
Do you have a video on showing how to find/figure out what the impedance of your feed point is?
I don’t, but I added it to the list 👍
I need a Balbal....How to Wind on what core ??
I'm still trying to figure out the UnBal
Do you have to scrape the whole circumference of the wir, or just where you’re going to solder?
I do the whole circumference of the unwound wire 👍
A little bit of irony -- my Dad worked for Dremel (in the 70's), and he'd bring me spool ends of enamel wire for my projects.
That’s awesome Paul 👍
Scraping the enamel is the fun part😂
You would make a good Nano VNA book SmokingApe.
Thanks Ghost 👍
Very cool video. Just a question though. Wouldnt it be easier to use a 75ohm coax like rg11 and tune the length to get your match? 75 ohm cable loses less and is much cheaper anyways. Only downfall i could see is possible lower power handling. What do you think?
75 would get a closer match but not exact. I haven't messed with rg11 but as I understand it, the power handling is lower as you mention 👍
Where can one find a copy of the diagram?
Would be much appreciated
www.huyettm.net/uploads/2/8/0/5/28054229/balun_and_unun.pdf I think that should get you what you need 👍
I must be really confused because to me it sounds like you're saying the only difference is how they're connected, and surely it can't be that simple 😅 I must have missed something 🤔
hey redeye, the connection is the only difference in these 👍
@@TheSmokinApe ok!!😃👍 It's because I understood it completely the first time you said it, that's what threw me, lol 😆😂😅
Great explanation, a 5 y/o could understand it 😊🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟
I try to take complex info and make it approachable, somethng that some folks can't seem to do!
Nice basic, but fundamental, video Ape. Eat yo cabbage and black eyed peas! Worry about the cabbage later…
Hey Frank, thanks for checking it out!
Hi SmokinApe - I created a schematic showing a multi-tap unun. I think it is fairly intuitive and may be helpful to some of your subscribers. As I don’t create youtube videos myself I’m not sure how I can share the schematic with you. If you can recommend a way for me to share the schematic (email?) I’d be happy to do so. If I manage to get a copy to you and you like it you are free to use it or share as you like with or without attribution to me. - Cheers - Jim
Hey Jim, send it to thesmokinape@gmail.com thank you 👍
Great info on the Baluns and UNUNS. Where can I purchase the cores to build one?
This is who I use www.jpmsupply.com/Default.asp
Those 2 things look exactly the same. I'm still confused.
They are slightly different, pay attention to where the center tap connects 👍
Birds know that they can land on electric lines. Whichever line they land on becomes zero volts for them. They know their reference makes their line zero volts even though there's a lot of current running through the wire. They can change the zero point reference by jumping from one line to another.
We know that nothing really changes in the electrical wires when the bird reference changes from wire to wire. If you think about it, you can realize there's no real difference between your balun and your unun. You're just the bird jumping from wire to wire.
BDRFI, I appreciate the insightful posts.
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