[ADXA] Lesson of the day

[Jay Bromley]

HI Dennis and Joel,
Not to pile on too much, but a high power Shortwave station or a nearby
broadcast station can cause erratic readings in antenna analyzer.  This
doesn't sound like what is causing your analyzer some grief since Mark's
analyzer was working A-OK.  Some analyzers come with bandpass filters or
can be options.

Glad Mark's analyzer was stable!  Onward and upward.  Good show getting
back on the air!!    73 de w5jay..

P.S.  Checked out my SteppIR the other day and found the director and
reflector EHU's OK, but the motor in the driven element had an open
winding.

On Sat, Jun 1, 2024 at 3:05 PM <w5znjoel at gmail.com> wrote:

> One of my favorite topics and activities……antenna and network analyzers.
>
>
>
> Dennis – very glad to hear things are getting back up to speed at “DM”.
> After you replaced the batteries did you check the settings?? The
> replacement may have cause some settings to default. Was the impedance
> still set to 50 Ohms? Did you have a calibration stored that you were using
> that disappeared with the battery swap?
>
>
>
> I will, on occasion, get some odd or bogus readings only to discover
> something changed, or I changed something, and the device was not setup
> correctly for one reason or another.
>
>
>
> Did you check the analyzer with a 50-ohm load attached? That’s always a
> good check of the analyzer or VNA.
>
>
>
> Just a couple of initial thoughts.
>
>
>
> 73 Joel W5ZN
>
>
>
> *From:* adxa-bounces at mailman.qth.net <adxa-bounces at mailman.qth.net> *On
> Behalf Of *Dennis Tune
> *Sent:* Saturday, June 1, 2024 12:06 PM
> *To:* ADXA List <adxa at mailman.qth.net>
> *Subject:* [ADXA] Lesson of the day
>
>
>
> Lesson of the Day...Chapter 27 from lightning fallout...
>
>
>
> I finally got the SteppIR back online...Had to drop it and tilt it over
> and take my 80m Dipole hardware out of the equation because I had a fried
> Balun connection...Ran the coax feed line directly into the Driver unit and
> wow it started working...Now I had to re-tune every band (for all 3
> directions)...Everything was going great until my Rig Expert AA-230
> analyzer battery level started to drop with only 1 band remaining...No big
> deal right?...New AAA batteries and finish the job...Not So Fast Old
> Man...started getting crazy SWR readings and noting was consistent...After
> pulling my hair out for 6 hours and many 4-letter words I finally gave up
> for the night...Called Mark K5XH and asked his thoughts and he said what I
> had suspected...Maybe my Rig Expert was not working right...He brought his
> over and Boom...consistent readings from his and still crazy readings from
> mine...He patted me on the shoulder and said "That Sucks"...he loaned me
> his and in an hour, I had the antenna tuned and on the air with my ICOM
> 7610...
>
>
>
> Moral of the story...Don't always trust your what analyzer is telling
> you...
>
>
>
> Now I just need FT4GL on 30, 40 and SSB...
>
>
>
> Dennis Tune W5DM
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