One of my thoughts has already been covered pretty well. wrapping a
leg of any antenna around anything, be it metal or otherwise, is a big
no-no. When you do that, you are unbalancing, and thus un-tuning the
antenna. If whatever it is wrapped around is an insulator, even one or
two turns will mean that you have added a loading coil to that side of
the antenna, thereby changing the effective length of that leg.
So, get that coil out of there.
Now, as for the shorted condition, does your G5RV contain a balun? I
think you said earlier that it does not. If that is the case, then the
suspect is the point where the ladder line is connected to the coax
pigtail. The only way to fix that is to cut that pigtail off, and
install a new one, or attach the feedline directly at that point,
eliminating the pigtail altogether.
If, however, it does include a factory supplied balun, you need to
determine the type of balun. The problem is that certain baluns, such
as the traditional W2AU type baluns, will indeed show a DC short
across the coax. This short does not affect RF, but I have observed
more than one person pull their hair out thinking they had a problem
when they in fact did not.
Mike Duke, K5XU
American Council of Blind Radio Amateurs
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