[Elecraft] Now General RF Issue WAS 160m loop experiment a big failure

[Ian White GM3SEK]

As Jim Brown says: if all these problems came on suddenly, focus on what 
parts of the installation have CHANGED.

You may well have identified one:

>
>Right now I am thinking that I have a bad coax line outside of the 
>house.  The reason for this is that I had a new propane tank installed 
>and they needed to back the truck up and had to drive over the buried 
>coax.  I did put boards down to spread out the load and protect the 
>lawn and also the coax.  However the problem has started since this 
>incident.
>
>I pulled the coax out of the ground and it has bend marks at the edges 
>where the boards were which to means that it was deformed and maybe it 
>is now crushed.
>

Is there any chance that the shield has been pulled apart, and is now 
completely open-circuit? A broken shield connection can be a major cause 
of RFI, as RF currents can appear in very odd places in their search for 
a new return path.

How would a TDR respond to a broken shield? "Installation-dependent", I 
suppose...


-- 

73 from Ian GM3SEK
http://www.ifwtech.co.uk/g3sek