[Mobile-Portable] Iron Horse 40m Ground?

Chuck Mabbott aa8vs at yahoo.com
Mon Jul 19 05:53:53 EDT 2004


Try the setup without the spring and see if that
changes anything

73  Chuck AA8VS

--- Jay Eimer <ad5pe at familynet.net> wrote:
> Okay, here's one for y'all.
> 
> A friend of mine (KE5UL, Bill Lund) has a Jeep
> Cherokee and a 706MkII-G.
> 
> He picked up an Iron Horse 40m single band whip.
> 
> The mount is a "side-mount" (metal bar with two
> holes - one at either end)
> that goes under the ball of a receiver hitch.  The
> other hole has a pass
> through with 3/8x24 socket on the top (matches the
> whip) and an SO-239 on
> the bottom.
> 
> We passed the coax out the hatch and hooked it up to
> the bottom.  On top we
> put on a large spring (something he had - it's old)
> that was a 3/8" stud on
> one end and 3/8" socket on the other and then the
> whip.
> 
> NOTHING.
> 
> So I got out the antenna analyzer, and the needle
> was swinging all over
> everywhere - seemed to be when the antenna was
> moving.  Of course, these are
> pretty flexible, with 4' or so of "stinger", so it's
> always moving, even
> when the Jeep is parked.  SWR would go from 2.5 to
> infinity and back, about
> once per second.  Steadying the antenna helped, and
> we appeared to get it to
> tune, and it hears pretty good.  But no one answers
> us.  We got one contact
> who reported us "very weak", 2x2.  But as it stands
> now, there's no way this
> antenna is going to work as it stands.
> 
> Tried another antenna and all is fine.  It's just
> this one.  Since the
> analyzer wouldn't steady, I suspected a bad
> connection, most likely with the
> spring.  But I thought I'd ask here first, in case
> anyone else had
> encountered similar problems.  Is this inherent in
> the Iron Horse antennas?
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Jay
> AD5PE
> 
> ----
> Your Moderator: Dick Flanagan K7VC,
> mobile-portable-owner at mailman.qth.net
> 


=====
Chuck Mabbott   
http://www.aa8vs.org/aa8vs


Whoever says, "money can't buy you happiness" 
should turn their savings over to me, then stand
back and be prepared to stand corrected.


		
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