> I have a great chance to purchase 2 Telrex monbanders.
> I am somewhat surprised that I cannot locate any
> evidence of Telrex, except the hundreds of happy
> contesting customers that have pictures posted on
> their web pages.
Hi Steve,
The biggest disappointment I have ever had was buying the largest
three element Telrex forty meter antenna.
Mine was an early antenna, not a later one. It had thin aluminum
elements that broke every time the wind hit 60 mph. Later models
had doubled up the tubing in the weak areas by inserting sleeves
inside the weak areas.
The balun was absolute junk. It was a 1:1 balun with a "house wire"
compensating coil and a coiled coaxial cable. It was the factory
balun for this antenna, and cause a severe unbalance as well as
adding inductive reactance to the feed system.
The reflector tuning was off quite a bit, too far below the 40 meter
band. The SWR was nice, but f/b ratio was "ho-hum".
After spending well over a thousand dollars for boom trucks
(including adjusting the element tuning while the antenna was 130
feet in the air), I took mine back down and rebuilt it using .058 wall
aluminum instead of the awful .032 (or something similar) wall stuff
used in some element sections away from the boom.
Now it has (thankfully) lasted a year without any repairs! It is my
$2800 forty meter antenna, I could have done better building one
from scratch.
My advice is to NOT pay a premium for the name. Buying an old
antenna can be a disappointment.
73, Tom W8JI
W8JI@contesting.com
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