Weird antenna problem

[Al Parker]

HI Al,
    Are the connectors type N?  If so, is there any physical pull on the 
coax line that would tend to stretch it?.  It's possible for the center pin 
of the male connector to back up into the body a little bit, thus tending to 
disconnect it.
    It's happened to me with a 50ft vertical run of RG-8 size coax up a 
crankup/rotatable tower to a beam.  At first it would remake the connection 
with the application of RF (1kw helped best).  Then finally nothing would 
help short of redoing the connector.  Because of the crankup tower, I was 
unable to support the cable at intermediate points.
73,
Al, W8UT
New Bern, NC
www.boatanchors.org
www.hammarlund.info

"there is nothing -absolutely nothing- half as much worth doing as simply 
messing about in boats."
   Ratty, to Mole


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Schichler, Alfred (GE EntSol, Digital Energy)" 
<Alfred.Schichler at GE.COM>
To: <BOATANCHORS at LISTS.TEMPE.GOV>
Sent: Tuesday, June 23, 2009 10:05 AM
Subject: [BOATANCHORS-TEMPE] Weird antenna problem


I'm not sure if this is the right group to ask about this problem, but I
figure I'll give it a shot:

Every so often, when I'm using my Butternut vertical mounted on the
garage roof, I notice that signals are way down, like more than 20 dB
down, almost like no antenna or a shorted antenna.
Well, I discovered that if I go in the garage (where there is a
lightning arrestor installed at the 75 ohm and 50 ohm coax junction) and
disconnect the lightning arrestor and squirt some contact cleaner on the
connectors, it works fine again. This happens every few months or so.
I just bought a new lightning arrestor last month, and I took a wire
brush to all the connectors and adapters connected to it, but the
problem still keeps coming back. (It just happened last night). I guess
it's possible that one of the coax connectors has an intermittent
connection, but it didn't look that way when I put an MFJ antenna
analyzer on it. I could only check one of the connectors though.
It's not a real serious problem since it's not hard to fix
(temporarily), but I was wondering if anyone has ever heard of anything
similar and found the cause. (Static discharge of some sort maybe?)

Thanks,
Al, WA2AS




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