Adding a 1:1 back to the Flag-dipole

I've been questioning the effectiveness of the flag-dipole for a while. It really hasn't been doing much.

For a while, it's had ladder line coming down to a homebrew 1:1, then later what was possibly a 9:1 I put on in a hurry because the the contacts on the previous balun were rusting. 

I brought a Tet-Emtron 1:1 kit and assembled myself. Honestly glad I saved the $20 by not buying it pre-built. It filled in 15 minutes. 

I dropped the dipole (the joys of the flagpole), stripped off the ladder line, attached it to the centre, pulled up enough excess RG58 and hoisted it up. 

I hooked the SARK100 antenna analyzer up to the antenna on my desk. Previously, I couldn't get the antenna even close to matching without the ATU. 

 

Yes, the original plate is still there..

 

The results are certainly improved. 80m isn't quite perfect, but then this antenna was never tuned, so some results can probably be improved by tweaking that a little more. 

 

Doing some SSTV testing earlier, I could see a reasonable increase in power getting into the antenna. Sadly, no responses as conditions aren't fairing so well for me towards VK2, though I've managed to hear myself well in VK5. My noise floor on the dipole though is currently 20+ so I'm not sure if I'd even hear a reply if I tried. 

 

Frequency MHz	SWR	Impedance
1.800	1.79	39
3.500	1.75	65
3.550	1.43	59
3.600	2.6	100
3.700	2.6	100
7.000	1.6	65
7.100	1.51	56
7.200	1.33	49
7.300	1.14	49
10.100	1.06	39
10.117	1	42
12.000	3.23	51
12.100	2.85	45
14.100	3.17	122
14.200	3.45	111
14.300	3.68	97
18.100	1.7	32
18.200	1.52	32
21.000	2.03	29
21.100	1.82	28
21.200	1.68	30
24.900	1.16	56
24.990	1.27	60
27.000	1.58	25
27.100	1.44	27
27.200	1.28	30
27.300	1.17	33
27.400	1.07	37
27.500	1.14	38
28.000	1.37	53
28.100	1.5	54
28.200	1.66	54
28.300	1.83	53
28.400	2.04	53
28.500	2.23	53
35.500	2.01	18
44.500	1.42	58
50.000	1	98
51.000	1	92
52.000	1	60