When Ron referenced  what I had suggested that he check, I realized the 
message went only to him. Since this type of frustration could easily 
happen to any of us, I am posting that same message to the list.

My subject line to Ron was "Before you cut the connector off the loop."


Disconnect the ballun first, then check the connectors for shorts.

If the ballun is one of those that is wire wound through some toroids, 
the ballun itself will show a short, even when the coax itself is okay. 
I learned that when working with the W2AU balluns long ago.

My guess is that one of the PL259's is shorted. Of course, it probably 
won't be the first one you cut off, so be ready to replace both of them..

As for the vertical, I thought of another possible problem. Some of the 
slip together fiberglass tube verticals need to have their connecting 
contact points re-soldered to the wire and capacitors that are inside 
the various sections of the antenna.

Some of us around here have encountered that situation with the Tram antennas.

Either way, you will still need to take the thing down to get to the problem.

-- 
Mike Duke, K5XU