I was so excited. Last night I told my wife, Palma, that I felt like a kid
on Christmas Eve in anticipation of finally getting the guys over this
morning to help me get my antennas up. Well, the fellows from the local ham
club came over early this morning, and we got busy working on all the little
details in preparation for erecting my antennas, the Dual Band vertical for
144 and 440 and the full-wave, 80 meter loop. We drilled holes in the
foundation and wall for my coax and ground wire, got the loop attached to
the pulleys and the vertical on top of the mast. Finally, it was time to
hoist up the mast and position it in the wall bracket and secure the base.
Then, the time came to connect the coax fittings and check it out with the
antenna analyzer. Much to everyone's shocked and massive disappointment, we
got SWR readings of 25 to 1, and even 31 to 1, which is as high as the meter
would go. That is when the sick feeling developed in my stomach. What
greatly exacerbated the situation is that we got almost equally high SWR
readings on both coaxial feedlines. Just to see what would happen, I
connected the loop to my TS-590, and tuned across 20 meters and could hear
nothing. I started unscrewing the coax fitting from my rig, and as I did,
the noise level in my TS-590 got really loud and then, dropped back to very
low. That is when I discovered that if I completely unscrewed the outer
shell ground side of the PL259 and just kept the center conductor plugged
into the antenna input jack, that the noise level remained quite high, and
as I tuned across the band, I could hear several signals, still not what I
would expect, but I could hear signals. As soon as I screwed the outer
ground shield on the antenna jack, the radio went almost completely dead
again. Sounds like something is  shorted somewhere, huh? 

 

To have one antenna system not work is one thing, but to have both of them
not work is almost beyond chance. So, the guys left, and I still don't have
any operational antennas. I'm not sure what we are going to do, but I think
we need to do two things: One is to disconnect the coax from the ballun I
have connected to the loop and connect a dummy load to the coax and see what
it shows on the SWR meter, and second, connect the antenna analyzer directly
up to the ballun which is connected to my loop and see what it shows us.
Those steps will help us isolate the problem. As for the vertical, I don't
know what to do with that one because it is way up on the top of the mast,
and it was one hell of a job getting that mast erected up and in place. It
took five guys to do it, and it was all they could do to keep it under
control while they worked it up and in place. 

 

So, guys and gals, it will be a little longer before K8HSY is up and
operational on the ham bands. 

 

73,

Ron, K8HSY

 

 

Dr. Ronald E. Milliman

Retired Professor of Marketing

President: A3 Business Solutions (a3businesssolutions.com)

President: M&M Properties

Chair: American Council of the Blind's PR Committee

Chair: American Council of the Blind's MMS Committee

President: South Central Kentucky Council of the Blind (SCKCB.ORG)