[Boatanchors] Beam question

[Geoff]

Since the DE only has a 15M trap Id suspect a shorted cap which would 
explain why 20 still looks OK

At least the DE is easy to get at.

Carl
KM1H



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "RAY FRIESS" <rayfrijr at msn.com>
To: "boatanchors" <boatanchors at mailman.qth.net>
Cc: "FLBOATANCHORS" <flboatanchors at yahoogroups.com>; "glowbugs" 
<glowbugs at piobaire.mines.uidaho.edu>
Sent: Saturday, February 18, 2012 7:59 PM
Subject: Re: [Boatanchors] Beam question


>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Need some advice from the fellow old timers here ... or even the wise 
> newcomers...
>
> I have a HyGain beam antenna, the Explorer 14.   Fairly old, but has been 
> a great performer with nearly unity SWR from one end of the band the other 
> on 10, 15 and 20 ..
> until recently.
>
> Now, a few weeks ago the SWR on 15  shot up so high that it nearly pins 
> the SWR meter.   However, the SWR on 20 and 10 are still less than
> 1 to 1 and it continues to load fine.   Barely moves the needle on the SWR 
> meter.
>
> My question is, what should I suspect?    A 15 meter trap gone bad, or 
> maybe corrosion in the area where the traps and elements are clamped 
> together?
> The antenna has been up for about five or six years now, without any 
> trouble prior to now.   Sometimes there would be brief periods of a few 
> hours with a
> high SWR such as when we had snow accumulate on it, but when it dried up, 
> the SWR came back down to normal.
>
> I thought if it was either a bad trap or a corroded element to trap joint 
> that the SWR would be all out of kilter on all three bands, not just 15 
> meters.
>
> I'm sure it's something with the antenna.   I use a TS-50 solid state rig 
> with the automatic antenna tuner.  It still loads and puts out full power 
> on 20 and 10,
> but on 15 because the SWR is so high, the power dips down to about 5 watts 
> output on the beam.   I can load a regular dipole without problems.
> I tried taking the auto tuner out of line to see if it was having a 
> problem on 15, but I still get the same high SWR without it in line.
>
>
>
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