Which common mode choke??

[mulletbay1]

Hi


Of the common mode chokes covering 160-10, what is the best for the dollar? My antennas is a good product, but which model?


Thanks
Bill

 

[K4EET]

What is the maximum power that you will be pumping through the choke?

 

[vagrant]

There’s one for $99 and another on sale for $79. Either should work. I use one at the antenna feed point with my off center fed antenna. Some operators need a second one near their radio, but that didn’t make a difference for me. It reduced 2 S units of noise for me and slightly less on other bands. I believe I use the one linked below. It has been a while since I installed it.

CMC-130-3K 1-30MHz – MyAntennas.com

 

[prcguy]

There’s one for $99 and another on sale for $79. Either should work. I use one at the antenna feed point with my off center fed antenna. Some operators need a second one near their radio, but that didn’t make a difference for me. It reduced 2 S units of noise for me and slightly less on other bands. I believe I use the one linked below. It has been a while since I installed it.

CMC-130-3K 1-30MHz – MyAntennas.com

That one seems to have the best specs of any I can find. I have several.

 

[vagrant]

I'm pretty sure that is the one I have. Looks like the one on sale is slightly smaller, less weight and slightly different specs. I don't really have noise on 6 meters, so I don't have that other one that goes up to 54 MHz either.

Of the radio gear I own, not counting analyzers, the MyAntennas choke balun is probably the best bang for my radio dollars. It was like coming out of the dark ages into the modern world, especially that 2 S unit noise reduction. I just could not believe it and took it off/on several times before I even looked at what I did on other bands. I was probably looking at 20 meters at the time. I previously had a NOT MyAntennas choke balun on there for years. It finally failed and that's when I entered the modern age and realized what I had been missing.

If I had not been successful at building an End Fed ( thank you prcguy ), I probably would not have built others and would have purchased a MyAntennas End Fed. I may still purchase one just to compare. I don't feel like I'm wasting money on trying their products.

 

[jazzboypro]

I have 2 from myantnnas. One on my HF loop and the other on my 8010 OCF antenna (also from myantennas)

 

[Chris155]

I have high noise s5 to s7 in my shop. I’ve determined it’s either from power lines or close neighboring businesses. Any chance one of these myantenna chokes could help with that?

 

[prcguy]

I have high noise s5 to s7 in my shop. I’ve determined it’s either from power lines or close neighboring businesses. Any chance one of these myantenna chokes could help with that?

Choke baluns basically strip off RF currents flowing only on the outside of the coax, commonly called common mode currents as they only travel on one conductor, the outside one. That can reduce receiver noise by removing RFI induced onto the coax that may be too weak to pick up through the coax shield and instead it travels up to the antenna where its finally picked up at a level you can receive.

The RFI induced onto the coax that can be treated by chokes is usually put there as the coax passes close to RFI generating sources like computers, switching power supplies, etc. Noise that is already outdoors from power lines, neighbors solar systems, etc, is more likely to be picked up directly by the antenna rather than through the coax braid or induced onto the braid where it then travels to the antenna.

Bottom line is you won't know until you try it. If you get a cheap choke with poor performance it may do nothing where a good one might. In my case I hand wound a common mode choke using a large ferrite toroid. It made a slight improvement and I was happy until I burned it up with high power. I replaced it with a MyAntennas high end choke and that improved things noticeably with a lower noise floor on my spectral display.