Tom,
Thanks for the input. I agree with you 100%. But I'm not going to ground them.
The housing that holds the stepper motor looks like a vacuum formed two piece
arrangement. The thing is sealed up pretty tight. Air is allowed to pass
through foam pads in the element tips. The elements are spooled up on two
separate spools. The tape runs through a brush that is really 4 separate
contacts on each tape. The contacts are what appears to be the same material
the elements are made of, but round like 1/8" rod. 4 of these are welded to
the tips of a spring that looks like the letter "H". Grounding the elements
would not be a big deal. Imagine the letter H illustration. A screw passes
through the cross member between the vertical portions of the "H". There is
one brush on each tape with a wire between them on the parasitics, and of
course the balun / transformer on the driven. The easy fix would be a wire
from that jumper, outside the waterproof housing, and attached to the boom.
Copious amounts of silicone should seal it back up. Unfortunately, that wire
will be approximately 8" long and will not be balanced. I have no idea what
that would do. The direct connection would be straight through the cover of
the housing (maybe 2" long but balanced) and no longer waterproof.
I considered much of the information you provide here. I even confronted the
boys at FM directly. I think that until it becomes a problem for somebody
(I've monitored the SteppIR reflector on yahoogroups for almost 2 years and no
mention in my memory), the FM boys are not going to change it. I considered
mods myself. For various reasons, I've decided to just leave it. I may be
sorry. But so far so good.
#1 - I assume a modification would void their 4 year warrantee.
#2 - the mod could introduced imbalances that cause more problems than cure
#3 - the 'fix' in the event of a failure is not that expensive. Not much
different than a run of feedline.
Ford-N0FP
ford@cmgate.com
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