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A long time ago, there was this U.S. Air Force base north of Manila called Clark Air Base. A lot of hams and experimenters frequent the surplus shops that abound in the vicinity of the base. On one of my trips , i saw what seemed then to be the largest set of balun toroidal transformers i have ever laid my eyes on.
As an experimenter I suddenly had one of those "got to have that" feeling. � said to myself "Well, maybe one day I will find a use for it".
So I lug this mammoth of a balun home, only to be relegated to a corner in the shack. I remember that a few months later, I brought it to a local ham fest, the "District One Pakulo at Don Bosco Technical College in Mandaluyong" to be part of our club exhibit on homebrewing and experimenting. It was on this hamfest where I first eyeballed with young guy interested in ham radio, Nas Ona. He later became a good friend and licensed Ham (DU1FBY) as well as active member of our club. He is now also sitting as mayor of his hometown in Calaca, Batangas.
As for the balun, back again to the corner it went. After two decades or so (no joke), I found myself without a working forty meter antenna because i had bought down the diamond balun from the mast. It had some hairline cracks in the plastic which i suspected was either caused by hi swr operation or lightning. Electrically it tested ok but, still confidence was not very high. I then look for a replacement. I even started to browse the internet for a source of a good kw balun. As i browsed , I saw some pictures of a 1:4 double core setup that looked very familiar. I then remembered the big balu and frantically searched the junk boxes for it. I soon found it, a bit dusty but intact. The only thing remaining was to find out if it will work on hf.In a few minutes i rigged it up with a long piece of balanced line feeder given to me by my friend Louie, DU1KIP and found it works quite well from 3.5 to 28 mhz. It a bit bulky, but I am not complaining and my forty meter loop is back in service. I found that using this balanced line and in shack balun gave better matching on most higer ham bands than my old coax fed loop setup.
It is nice to have an old piece of ham gear working in the shack that also reminds me of the "glory days" of ham life - scrounging surplus shops, going to hamfests and meeting new friends. And well, what do you know, one day I DID find a use for it.
Mon DU1FV