While I wait for the Insurance to pay off next week, I've been working on
the arrays, this week was bury the cable time. Lot of work, I'm to the point
were I have a T-joint to intersect with the Tropo tower and run several
cable to the same pipe. SO I figured I'd give the Tropo antenna's a good
tuning. The only rig that works after the lightning is a FT-736 I had
setting in the closet, so I started at the bottom of the stack and worked
up. They are on a hazer system so it's not hard really to work on with a
step latter. I got the 5-ele M2 6mtr to tune flat at 50.1, I have the 432
tuned flat at 432.1, the 220 is also tuned fine, But I'll be ^&#^*#$ if I
can get the 144 antenna to tune. It's showing the antenna is tuned below
144.0 someplace. The SWR drops as I tune down the band and I run out of band
before it gets to a 1:1. I have moved the two shorting bars from one extreme
to the next on the driven element 1/4" at a time and it never moves the SWR.
I've changed feed lines and meters and it is just not going to change. Could
the fancy sealed feed point be blown somehow ? I didn't have this issue till
after the lightning and it's leading me to think that this was the focal
point of the strike. There are no burn marks on any of the lines or
antennas, but most of the 2meter gear was toasted. No fancy antenna
analyzers at this shack so it's radio and meters only. Ideas ?
Needless to say I will not be contesting this weekend
David - N5ITO / EM23
http://david.davidv.net
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