To: <towertalk@contesting.com>
> Date: Sun, 22 Mar 1998 08:33:32 -0800
Hi Dick,
> My primary reason for thinking it made sense to ground the unused antennas
> was for static discharge. If they were grounded, any static buildup would
> be automatically and continuously drained off to ground. The negative
> scenario I envisioned was to have a floating antenna building up a
> significant static charge and then switching my radio onto that "hot"
> antenna.
In that case it makes sense. To avoid that problem, I use a small
choke or high value high voltage resistor across the antenna
feedpoint.
The reason I do that is I learned a hard lesson when my T network
tuner charged up and flashed over into my RX system wiping out
about a dozen hard-to-service components. Of course that
happened even though the antenna was already selected, so grounding
of unused antennas wouldn't have helped!
The really silly part was I thought I'd put a choke on the offending
antenna as soon as I could, and in the mean time avoid operating when
the WX even looked poor. The next week it happened again on a clear
but windy day.
IMO, having a
>
> 73, Dick
>
> --
> Dick Flanagan W6OLD CFII Minden, Nevada DM09db (South of Reno)
> Visit http://www.qsl.net/w7di/
>
>
>
73, Tom W8JI
w8ji.tom@MCIONE.com
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