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

[mm <NOPSAMmm2005@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 23 Jan 2006 18:09:50 -0800, 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.

There you go, 300 ohms.  Just like other flat lead.

This white foam might be easier to strip than the flat plastic.

You could use screws and nuts to attach this current antenna to the
flat lead side of  impedance matching transformer, the small white or
black cylinder 1 3/4inches by a half inch,  with flat lead coming out
of one end, and the coax connector at the other end.  (Between a
dollar and 2.25. Though only surplus and hamfests charge a dollar.)

And later you could solder the leads if you wanted to.

The female coax connector on transformer will fit well with the male
one on the piece of coax cable you will buy or make.

Some bigger wider ones have screw terminals for the flatlead, and if
the washer has teeth, supposedly you don't even have to strip the
wire.  And they may have coax wire coming out with a male connector.

That's when you'll need a M-M adapter, only about 2 or 3 dollars  They
sell bothl M-M and F-F adaptors.

www.mouser.com has everything.

I haven't done it, but I think you can just connect the flat lead to
the coax input of a tv, and you'll still get a picture, even if it is
not the best quality.  Stick one wire in the hole and touch the other
lead to the threads.  Still, I guess if there were no picture, I'd
still try it with the matching transformer.

I used an outdoor antenna in Indianapolis in the 60's and NYC in the
70's and 80's, with flatlead.  I didnt' do anything about lightening
protection in either place, and never had a problem.  But maybe I
wouldn't do these hookups during a lightening storm.  Don't know
whether that caution is necessary or not.

In Brooklyn, I was up on the roof of the apartment building and found
an antenna above my apartment.  No one else seemed to be connected to
it, and the wire ran right by my window, so I just connected myself
for 10 years of ghost free viewing.

>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.


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