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Reviews For: Balun Design 9:1 for long wires antennas

Category: Antenna parts, accessories, incl. baluns, hardware, etc.

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Review Summary For : Balun Design 9:1 for long wires antennas
Reviews: 8MSRP: $82.95
Description:
An excellent high quality balun built to be used only with end fed long wire antennas.
Product is in production
More Info: http://www.balundesigns.com/servlet/the-106/9-cln-1-9-dsh-1-unun/Detail
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
0085
K6GBW Rating: 2020-10-12
Versatile and well built Time Owned: 3 to 6 months.
I recently needed to put up a new antenna that could do 160-10 meters for a MARS application. I used the 9135 9:1 Unun with a 135' wire. I attached the Unun underneath the soffit at the front of the house and used an eye bolt as a strain relief for the wire. I ran the wire from the front of the house up to a 30' mast and then back down to a small tree near my back fence. This inverted V configuration was very low profile and tuned up great. I managed to tune up all bands except 80 meters with the internal tuner on my Yaesu FT-991A. I used a simple MFJ-901B tuner to bring ALL the bands down to 1.4 or better. This antenna is perfect for its intended application. It has very low noise and works well for NVIS on 80 but still manages to get some distance on 40 and above. This is the second Balun Designs Unun I've used and both have exceeded my expectations.
AF4K Rating: 2019-06-15
My Fault - MOSTLY Time Owned: more than 12 months.
To be fair to Balun Designs, I wish I could delete the last review. The owner of the company contacted me and pointed out, quite rightly that the UNUN I had from them was only rated for 1KW or 2KW _IF_ the SWR is below 3:1 at all times! No wonder I had trouble! Also it worked fine for me for a long time, and made one of the est antennas I have ever used with a 100 foot end fed wire. 160 - 10m and ALL points in between including 60m. Low SWR and a great performer. I wish I could delete my previous review. I got busy and had to make some effort to get on here and correct this bad review. I apologize if the earlier review misled anyone etc. I can heartily recommend Balun Designs UNUNs.
HB9ARY Rating: 2017-04-21
Highly recommend for the “low-band antenna experimenter” Time Owned: 3 to 6 months.
Living in an urban area and looking for an efficient low-band antenna, I need a compact vertically polarized antenna with most of its current as high as possible. The end-fed linearly loaded inverted L dipole was my first choice (duo-bander: 80-40m). After buying and testing a multi-bands end-fed antenna I quickly realised that its Unun unit could not be easily adapted to some of my antenna experiment (over-heating, coax radiation, odd impedances…). Thus, I looked for a more general purpose device that could also handle much more power; and I ended up buying a 9135 - 9:1 Unun from “Balundesigns”. What a difference! The SWR measurement matched quite closely my EZNEC simulation and the Unun never over-heated even after rather long CW sessions during pile-ups while operating from my Mauritius holiday QTH (3B8HC). I am now testing an “Up-side down vertical” with its counterpoise at the top in the shape of a spiral; perfect behavior of the Unun even when operating at high SWR during the recent WPX contest. I can highly recommend this 9135 - 9:1 Unun, in particular for the “low-band antenna experimenter”.
K1EAR Rating: 2016-09-29
Update of previous review Time Owned: more than 12 months.
At suggestion of K5HCT, added an extra 48 feet of feedline, piled on floor in shack. Wire now tunes 80-6 M at under 1.8 swr. Happy camper here...
KT5OT Rating: 2016-09-06
fantastic performer! Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
awesome product.i live in a small 4 plex with lots of high trees and a wire vertical was the only option.as per the factory i used 53 ft. of wire with 34 radials of various lengths from 25-90 ft.
outstanding performance on all bands including 160 mtrs.using a palstar at2k tuner and running a kw.no issues with rf at all.the thing just works!!
AK9S Rating: 2015-10-13
Superb Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I am using a 1/2-wave end-fed antenna, which has over 4,000 ohms of impedance at the feed point. The 9135 UNUN handles this antenna extremely well, even when very high voltages are developed at the feed point with over 1 KW output. I can operate all day long without any worries.

Thanks Balun Designs! Highly recommended.
K0PG Rating: 2014-12-24
High quality and workmanship Time Owned: 3 to 6 months.
I live in a challenging environment for an active ham. All I have is a 14.5' x 6' balcony for my antenna farm. In my case, it's not a farm, it's window box. On top of that antennas are not allowed.
I know that I am not unique in this situation these days and that I am more fortunate than many in that we live on the top floor of a three story building. We are located on the far end and have some tree camouflage. Our building is about ten feet higher than the surrounding residential structures and we have a good view to the WNW.
I am a VHF+ operator for the most part and have been able to get away with small antennas mounted temporarily on our bird feeder supports.
When HF Contest Season rolls around I look for ways to operate in which I can hope to have some multi band capability without running in and out to change antennas or coil taps. There has been much written about end fed wires with 9:1 baluns so I thought that I would try it. I looked through reviews and websites. In the end I had a conversation with Bob at Balun Designs. He made helpful recommendations and designed a mounting system for my aluminum balcony railing. I placed my order and he got to work.
I have a 40' Spiderbeam fiberglass mast that I have used on portable operations. I dropped it into an umbrella stand and fastened it to the railing with cable ties. I ran a 36' wire to the to
the mast which topped out at about 36' for this experiment.
The balcony floor is 16' above ground which got me to 52' in total height. The balun is mount on the railing 4 feet from the balcony floor. There are tuned radials for 40, 20, 15 and 10 meters woven through the balcony. The ground side went to their connection point.
The different in S/N when compared to a mobile whip on the railing was dramatic. A railing antenna has to contend with the building, 6' away, and the roof line at 31'. Being above that obstacle made a hug difference.
My internal tuner was able to handle matching on all bands. After adding a 66' wire thrown off the balcony the antenna worked a bit on 160.
Bob was helpful throughout offering feedback and suggestions.

I won't be in this situation forever and when it comes time to give up the cliff dweller lifestyle I will be turning to Balun Designs again.
AD4C2006 Rating: 2013-05-15
Great quality balun Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
After been searching the net for a high power 9 to 1 balun to fed my 88 feet long wire I found this compny Balun Designs that build different impedance transformers baluns and contacted Bob the owner and designer to request more information about his balun part # 9135SW, he told me it could stand up to 5KW so taking in considertion that my Ameritron makes 1800W although I only load it at full legal limit, ordered this balun. In the past I have had bad experience with these claimed "high power" baluns that melt at low power so I was skeptical to purchase it but Bob convinced me, he is a nice person to deal with and today I can tell that he was right, this balun can handle the power of my AL-82 without saturation or heat therefor swr will never change no matter how much power I be using, I can load my 88 feet long wire from 160 to 10M easily, the impedance at the end of the 100 feet of RG-8 coaxial I am using is between 25 and 150 ohms depending of the band, so swr will never be over 3 to 1 and that only happens below 20M because from that band and all the way up to 10M is almost flat match 1 to 1. It works even on 6M where I have just 1.8 swr.
Before I installed this balun underneath my antenna, I opened it up to see the materials he used to build it and the ferrite cores are really big and high quality, besides the wires are #10 for high power, go to his web site and take a look to it, you sure will like what you see.
Thanks for your help Bob, antenna works super now.

Hector
AD4C