Tom, do either of the antennas have a loading coil or condensers?  If they 
do there may be a short there.
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Tom Behler" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, November 11, 2011 6:28 PM
Subject: Need helping making sense out of contradictory SWR readings


> 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