Coupla things. I need new Dacron, some I
have is from the 80's & finally at its
end. I bought some replacement but it's
not what I had. What I had was greenish
and solid braid, tough and incredibly
resistant to nature.
What my new "Dacron" is, is a white center
conductor I assume is Dacron, with a black
braided sleeve/outer-layer which slides
over the center conductor. It's OK but
difficult to work with and certainly not
what I am going to keep using. I contacted
one source who said he sells pure Dacron
rope but never buying from him before,
asked for a photo of an end piece so I
could see if it's what I'm looking for. He
never sent it to me so I'm still looking.
For the moment I need 500', soon, double
that. If there's a known source for the
good stuff in the states, please let me
know.
Now the Rodents, vermin, beasts; I don't
know what it was, but I've been plagued
with wildly varying SWR/antenna problems
often getting a SWR of 9 and then later
the normal SWR of 1.2. I'd get varying SWR
that was fine till say 30W and then the
LP-100A would jump to 9. I'd go out, check
things and find nothing wrong. It's been
driving me nuts. Intermittents suck. I
finally found the little miseries had been
chewing on the ferrite choke on the
control wires to the remote band-switch.
Amazing they only went for the 90 degree
bends, I'm sure they'll go for the
straight length again (did that once 6-7
years back). I have a Green Heron remote
with wireless transmitter ready to go out,
I'll do that in better weather.
Removed the rodent's teething ring &
reattached the wires to the remote box and
all's well, just some touch-up stuff to do
and prepare to put up an 80 sloper. The
tree above the radial plate is rotted, it
holds the current 80 vertical wire and
looks to come down soon, probably on the
plate or remote band-switch. But other
than that, I'm back on the air. Sure
delayed me getting into the contest on
Friday, but still knocked out 62 Q's & 37
countries on 160. Couldn't do much on
Saturday but t'was still fun.
Thanks for any thoughts on the Dacron.
73,
Gary
KA1J
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