Hello, everyone.

 

I guess this question is best directed to those who are familiar with the
Cobra Ultralite Senior antenna made by K1JEC, but I'll take thoughts from
anyone who is interested in replying.

 

Several years ago, I purchased a Cobra Ultralite Senior antenna from K1JEC,
or Granite State Antenna in New Hampshire.  My main reason for making the
purchase was to have operating capability on 80 and 160 meters.  The antenna
itself is up about 35 to 40 feet, and is strung between trees on my
property, and on a neighbor's property.

 

The antenna works well on 80 meters, and much of 160 meters, when tuned with
my MFJ 998 auto-tuner.

 

However, I have never been able to get it to tune on 40 meters.  In
addition, the tuning and performance are questionable at best on 20, 15, and
10 meters.  In fact, one problem I have noticed recently is that when tuning
it on 20 meters, using my MFJ998 auto-tuner and my ALS600, I actually get RF
coming through the PTT switch on my Heil gold line mic.  This, of course, is
not good.

 

All of this is prompting me to try to correct the situation.

 

Several months ago, I contacted Joe at Granite State Antenna in New
Hampshire, and he suggested that I make sure the excess ladder line is
coiled in several loops, and is off the ground. I just double-checked this,
and it is what we did when we installed the antenna. 

 

A ham friend of mine has suggested that I cut off the excess ladderline, and
see if that helps.

 

I am reluctant to do this, because the instructions say not to do so, and it
is one of those steps that will be difficult to reverse.

 

I am thinking of purchasing some RF chokes to help with the issue, bbut I
still think there is a basic problem with my instalation.

 

Fortunately, my Alpha Delta DXCC tunes well on40 through 10 meters, but it
would be nice if I could get the Cobra to do the same.

 

Any thoughts on this would be appreciated.

 

Tom Behler: KB8TYJ