Re: Connecting 16th century antenna wire to 21st century coax

[John McGaw <nobody@xxxxxxxx>]

bruno.lerer@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
> Yet another strange question from yours truly: on the roof of my house,
> anchored to the chimney, is a large outdoor antenna. No idea which
> antenna - it was installed before my time, probably 15 years ago (or
> more) and, for various reasons, I can't climb on the roof to find
> out.  From that antenna and into the house runs a brown cable (or is it
> wire?) labeled "Belden Celluline 9275 300 ohm UHF transmission" and
> a bunch of patent numbers.
>
> For some strange reason (it may have been done by the cable company
> when cable was first installed in the house - also before my time),
> that Belden cable was cleanly cut mid-way through its run across the
> basement.  While it doesn't look like any twin-lead cable I've seen
> before (and, admittedly, I haven't seen that many), it has a white
> core which looks like frozen foam and what appear to be two very thin
> metal lines, one on each side of the core.
>
> And the question: I want to find out if that antenna+cable setup still
> delivers a signal.  I would like to do it by connecting the Belden
> cable to a standard RG6 coax and then to a regular or HD tuner.  I
> understand that this connection would require a gizmo called a balun
> but that's as far as my understanding goes.  So what type of balun is
> it (if there is more than one)? How difficult is it to find? I imagine
> I need to strip the Belden cable on one hand and the RG6 on the other
> in order to connect them to the balun. Is it possible and, if so, how
> is it done?
>
> Thanks.
>

Typically a 300 to 75 ohm balun will have a pair of screw terminals for
the twin lead connection and an F connector for the coax connection.
Thus the twin lead simply needs stripping and screwing (yes, I know how
it sounds) but the other side will require that you install the
appropriate connector on the coax to match to the connector on the
balun. Sadly the most common sort of balun to be found has a male F
connector and the most common F connector for coax is also a male so you
will probably have to come up with a female-female F adapter to match
them up.

--
John McGaw
[Knoxville, TN, USA]
http://johnmcgaw.com