On Tue, Jul 7, 2020 at 12:19 PM, Gord Seifert wrote:

   I just looked on Mike's site and can not find a part with any reference to Oren Elliot. I do see this..
 https://www.mikeselectronicparts.com/product/384pf-air-variable-capacitor-with-81-planetary-reduction-drive/   But, the price is SO much less than on the Oren Elliot site that I can hardly believe it is the same. No problem with Mike's price, but no way am I paying well over twice as much to Oren Elliot. And, in the photo, the one on Mike's does not look anywhere near as pretty. Is the Oren Elliot version really that beautiful, or is that simply a computer generated image?

Hi Gord,

     The "N50 384P" variable cap from Mike's Electronic Parts (at the link you posted above) is exactly the same as the one from Oren Elliot Products, despite the much cheaper price. Oren Elliot is the OEM for the component, and has always charged higher prices (I have ordered from both sources, in the past).

<<<    Also, I have been looking for ferrite rods. I came up with this: https://tinyurl.com/ybk5amyr   Looks to be the same material you use (same seller too) but is considerably shorter at 125mm. Also MUCH less expensive. Would this work reasonably well for someone who does not need the absolute nth degree in performance? The 10mm x 200mm version is completely out of the question due to price.   >>>

The 125mm x 8mm ferrite rods are perfectly fine for FSL use, although if you would like significantly cheaper 140mm x 8mm ferrite rods than the ones that "Alexer1" sells (which are also slightly higher in gain than the 125mm variety), try this link from my friend Dennis ("sovtube," on eBay)  https://www.ebay.ca/itm/Russian-Large-balun-ferrite-rods-8x140-mm-Lot-of-20-NEW-High-Quality/164167133643?hash=item26391fa9cb:g:PekAAOSwYaFWfwfH

I have dealt with both of these sellers multiple times on eBay, and can assure you that Dennis will always provide the best price and service, if he has the ferrite rods that you are looking for.

<<<    One other question. Did you actually test the various different ferrite mixes for suitability while designing you FSLs? Or is it just a basic, known, fact that, for this frequency range, NiZn 400 permiability works best for this application?   >>>

To be honest, the reason why I use the Russian surplus 400-permeability ferrite rods in almost all of my FSL antenna designs is because back in 2011 (when the U.K.'s Graham Maynard introduced modern FSL antennas), the cost of this Russian surplus ferrite was dirt cheap, and the early FSL experimenters like Steve Ratzlaff, Kevin Schanilec and yours truly bought up a ton of it. I still have loads of this stuff stashed away, which cost about a third of what it costs currently. Of course I have nobody to blame but myself for the explosion in ferrite price, since immediately after I publish an FSL construction article the Ukrainian eBay sellers quickly jack up the price on the ferrite type I suggest, so that some weird cases result like the 140mm x 8mm ferrite rods actually costing more than the 160mm x 8mm ferrite rods in 2016. After noticing this in 2016 I published a 3.5" FSL construction article using the 160mm x 8mm ferrite rods, and the eBay sellers promptly evened out their prices :-)

Gary