Peter,
I rebuilt my KT34XA to a KT36XA shortly after M2 came out with the kits.
When I first got it to the top of the tower at 75 feet, the SWR curves
looked great. Then it rained and they looked terrible. To make a long story
short, water was finding it's way into some of the capacitor tubes. The
plastic caps weren't fitting snugly over the 3/8 inch tubes and water was
ingressing where the caps slid overe those tubes. I discussed with Wyatt and
he said they had a problem with some caps and sent a new bag. The fit over
the new 3/8 inch tubes was still very loose compared to the fit over the
original 3/8 inch tubes. I remember it being a bugger to get the caps over
those tubes when assembling a new 34XA. I let Wyatt know I thought there was
a slight dimension problem with the tubes, but never heard back from him. So
my swr goes up and down depending on the weather, but adding the times I've
had the 36XA up and down to the times I had the 34XA up and down working on
it, I decided I've had enough. The antenna really plays on 20 and 10 and is
ok on 15. The tuner keeps me in business as long as the thing isn't covered
with ice.
After saying what I did, and rereading your mail, I'm going to guess your
problem isn't water. So the moral of my story is that when I first
assembeled mine per M2 instructions the swr curves very closely resembled
those in the manual.
By the way I love the machined shorting bars in place of the aluminum
straps, but it's too bad I traded one problem for another!
73 de Larry K7SV
_______________________________________________
See: http://www.mscomputer.com for "Self Supporting Towers", "Wireless Weather
Stations", and lot's more. Call Toll Free, 1-800-333-9041 with any questions
and ask for Sherman, W2FLA.
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