Purchase a long, round file that you can mount in a hand-held
drill/driver. Use it gently to remove the crud.
Then .. use NoAlOx or some other anti-oxidant between the element pieces.
Good Luck
Don
N8DE
Kelly Jones wrote:
> Hi TTers,
>
> I have a Cushcraft XM240 that I think has developed an intermittent loose
> connection. I bought this antenna used and put it up this past fall. What
> I noticed is that the person that owned it before me must have used some
> type of "goop" inside the element tubings. The only thing I can assume is
> that it was some type of stuff to keep the tubing joints in good contact
> with each other. On the joints I took apart, I completely cleaned the
> outside of each smaller tube as it slid into the other. However, I had a
> difficult time cleaning the inside of the larger tube that the smaller slid
> into. This was some really nasty stuff and took a boat load of elbow
> grease and sandpaper (yes, sandpaper) to get the elements cleaned up. This
> stuff was really sticky and had all kinds of crud that have accumulated
> over time. The stickiness is what caused me the most problem with getting
> inside the tubes. Steel wool, fine grit sandpaper, etc. all would just go
> in and stick, probably causing more bad than good.
>
> Well, needless to say I think some of that junk is now causing me
> problems. I seem to have an intermittent where my SWR will go high, then
> back to normal, then high, etc. I'm suspecting that there is an element
> that has a piece of tubing that's not making good contact at one of the
> joints. So my question is, does anybody have a way to clean out the
> insides of the tubing sections. I'm obviously going to have to take the
> antenna down to fix it (in the middle of the Colorado winter!) and I want
> to be sure I don't have to do this again.
>
> Also, I seem to recall some talk flying around with regards grounding the
> reflector to the boom with a strap. Can somebody point out the reason for
> this? And finally, what's the consensus of using an MFJ86 (or whatever the
> number is) balun versus a coax wound balun? I have an older W2AU (I think)
> balun that I'm toying with replacing the MFJ with, but am now thinking
> about just making a coax one. Thoughts on this?
>
>
> 73
> Kelly - N0VD
>
>
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>
>
>
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