I have Cushcraft A4S which I haven't been using for a while. It worked
perfectly and was tuned to CW portion of the 20,15 and 10 m bands.
Few days ago I noticed that SWR on 10 meters went up (to approximately
4:1) and antenna started to resonate well above 29.0 MHz. At the same time
the resonant frequency moved higher on 15 m, but is still tolerable in the
CW portion (1.6:1).
20 m remains unchanged.
I took it down today and examined the traps. They all look O.K. except I
found few small spider nests inside. Also checked them for dc which appears
to be fine.
It's on the step ladders about 7 feet above ground level now.
Is there anything I can do? Anybody experienced same problem before?
Any tip would be appreciated.
Yuri,
I have had similar failures due to bugs, (spiders?) packing grass into the
traps. So far it has only caused problems in the driven elements of my
TH6DXX which is easy to get to. But likely within the next 10 years, I will
not want to or be able to climb.
To date, I have just cleaned it out, fixed or replaced the trap, depending
on how much damage it caused.
I wonder though the best way to deal with future issues? I thought about a
screen across the weep hole and discarded that notion because of the
possibility that dust and dirt from the rain might plug it up.
Another thought was to enlarge the weep holes and use screen (copper, brass
or stainless to make a pouch that dropped down from the weep holes to allow
more surface area for condensation to air out, however, that possibility
brings its own set of problems, such as damaging the screen, more open to
debris etc.
Does anyone else have a longer term experience in dealing with this problem?
Jim - KR9U
P.S. Traps are evil....
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