[MRCA] AB-15 MS antenna sections

[Ray Fantini]

So in advance of the events up in Gilbert and other activities this fall I swapped out the RT-662 exciter on my GRC-106 with a RT-834, wanted to have the 0.1 KHz steps.
Decided to try out everything yesterday on the M&S Net but being it was raining and an wet day all around decided to try using the 15' whip instead of the usual GRA-50 dipole or inverted V that's always served well with the expectation that I may hear but not be heard by the net up north.
Drove the mutt out in the yard, assembled the five mast sections (MS-116/117/118) and drove the ground rod in and was surprised by being copied by most stations on the net and hearing almost all though nobody was coming in much beyond S3 or so. I never expected the whip to work so well.
The problem is that every time that dam whip gets wet the sections somehow weld themselves together. What going on here? Now I got three sections that won't come apart no matter what I do. Had two parts that were stuck together from back in Aberdeen this spring and now three that are stuck together. Is there something that's supposed to go on the threads prior to assembly to prevent this? And is there any way to disassemble these things without destroying them in the process? I would like to think that this is an all weather operation around here but looks like rain has bad effects on any use of these MS mast sections.

Ray F/KA3EKH

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman.qth.net/pipermail/mrca/attachments/20170813/d2cf1547/attachment.html>