Hi Pat,
I suspect MT is not too far away from NB temperature and snow/ice wise.
In the 2000's I had a couple cheap Ameritron coax switches that would more
than occasionally
stick in the winter (always at the worst time too.just before a contest
started, am I right?).
My "solution" was to never power them down. I always had at least 1 antenna
relay/enclosure energized the whole winter.
I have learned, too, to let the enclosures breathe as it tends to be on the
humid side here, year round. Most of my outside "whatevers" have a big
bucket over the top of them to prevent snow/blowing snow from sneaking in.
I forget all the math right now but I *think* I was something approaching 1
Watt of heat by doing that with the old Ameritron switches. Seemed to really
help as the sticky relay syndrome seemed to mostly go away.
My current switch doesn't seem to stick but if it ever did I'd try whatever
method(light bulb/resistor/heat tape) to get a couple watts of heat out
there. I don't really think 1 Watt is enough, imo.
GL and let us all know how you make out.
CU (all of a sudden!) in the next one Pat,
Mike VE9AA in NB
Mike - Keswick Ridge, NB, Canada
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