What did you do with the extra coax? if you coiled it up, that will throw 
everything off. I generally try for maybe a couple feet extra in case I need 
to move things, unless dealing with hard line where it's easier to just cut 
it to length. It seems to me the couple times I had a lot extra, making it 
in a coil causes issues, and I don't know how you can have 40 feet all over 
the place, I'd get rid of most of that if I were you.
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Tom Behler" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, November 11, 2011 10:00 PM
Subject: Re: Need helping making sense out of contradictory SWR readings


>    Mike:
>
> You have a very interesting point here about local broadcast signals.
>
> I happen to live about a half mile from the tower for the only commercial 
> A
> M radio station in our little Michigan town. ... It broadcasts on 1460 AM,
> with a night-time power of, I believe, 1000 watts.
>
> Are you saying that this is what's messing the analyzer  up?
>
> Again, just to be sure I'm understanding you, are you saying ignore the
> analyzer, and just go with what my TW1 and TS590 meters are saying?
>
> Obviously, my 160 meter antenna is still too long electrically, so that 
> will
> need to be shortened.
>
> But, here's another question:  When we put up the 160 meter sloper, I only
> had a 100-foot piece of RG8X coax to connect between the antenna and the
> rig, which gives me about 40 feet of excess coax. ... Should I cut that 
> coax
> to only what I need?  Would that change anything?
>
> Again, you are giving me some very interesting observations here.
>
> 73 from Tom Behler:  KB8TYJ, Big Rapids, MI
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Mike Cozzolino" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Friday, November 11, 2011 9:30 PM
> Subject: Re: Need helping making sense out of contradictory SWR readings
>
>
>> hello tom, the analyzer is almost useless on 160 and 80m
>> antennas.  the reason is because you have so much broadcast signals
>> coming down the feed line that the analyzer is all messed up.  in
>> areas where folks don't have the broadcast crap the analyzer does the
>> fine job.  so go by the swr bridge and ignore the analyzer.  even a
>> swr bridge is influenced by the length of the feed line, you could
>> have a 1:1 some where along the coax where the swr is really much
>> higher.  the only way to use an swr bridge is through a electrical
>> half wave to the antenna or with the swr bridge at the feed
>> point.  you can also use multiple electridal half waves between the
>> swr bridge and the ant.  take care, c u 73 mike
>>
>>
>>
>> At 05:28 PM 11/11/2011, you wrote:
>>>Hi, folks.
>>>
>>>Well, I have managed to get hold of an MFJ 259B antenna analyzer to help
>>>try
>>>to figure out what is going on with my 80 meter and 160 meter sloper
>>>antennas that we put up a few weeks ago.
>>>
>>>However, when taking some preliminary readings with the analyzer tonight,
>>>and comparing them against what my TW1 watt meter and the SWR meter on 
>>>the
>>>TS590 say, I am getting very confusing results.
>>>
>>>Let me give a few examples:
>>>
>>>On 80 meters, my sloper has an SWR of about 5 to 1 on the top and bottom
>>>of
>>>80 meters, with a dip of 1.0 to 1 around 3.887 mhz.  But, when we put the
>>>analyzer on the antenna, it shows the lowest SWR to be about 1.3 to 1 at
>>>3.887 MHZ, but the SWR's skyrockets quickly on either side of that null 
>>>to
>>>infinity on the lowest part of the band, and to over 8.1 to 1 on the top
>>>of
>>>the band.
>>>
>>>With my 160 meter sloper, my lowest SWR is about 5 to 1 at the very 
>>>bottom
>>>of the band, according both to my TW1 and the TS590 SWR meter, but the
>>>needle on the analyzer doesn't even budge when tuning through the entire
>>>band, and stays up at some ungodly figure of an SWR of about 20 to 1.
>>>
>>>I just checked for a short  on my coax feed lines, and there does not
>>>appear
>>>to be any problem there.
>>>
>>>We are using fresh batteries in the analyzer which were just bought
>>>tonight.
>>>
>>>Are we perhaps not adjusting the analyzer correctly?
>>>
>>>I am sure that, to some, all of this seems very elementary, so please 
>>>bare
>>>with me while I do some learning here.
>>>
>>>73 from Tom Behler:  KB8TYJ
>>