Gentlemen,
Things appeared to be going so well with the refurb, until today and its
raining as well. My mind turned to looking at the OEM balun and the traps
in the reflector, which I can work on under cover.
The OEM balun, in spite of it being aloft for ten years or more, was as
clean inside as when it was new, all the connections tight and clean,
breathing a sigh of relief, I cleaned up the exterior and put it to one
side.
Now the traps. I slid the end covers off the first pair of traps on one
half of the reflector, the screw holding the outer cover, which also forms
one half of the tuning capacitor, is stainless and really tight, I applied
the air line to the interior of the traps via the gaps in the end
concentric insulators, and all seemed well. Simple checks with the ohm
meter did not detect any high resistance between the inductor winding and
the element sections, so far, all well and good.
However, dismantling the traps in the second half of the reflector
revealed a problem, both traps had a dried mud filling one end, one trap
also had the remains of a charred bug, so he paid the ultimate price. I
suspect that both these infestations were wasps of some sort ,but I dont
suppose the original owner of the X7 noticed any difference in
performance.
My question for X7 users in the group. How do you dismantle a Cushcraft X7
trap to clean the mess out? I can see how it was assembled, but the final
act of the constructor was to put 4 "dimples" in the outer cover which
locks the outer cover into the concentric insulator at one end of the
trap. I tried gentle force, then a small wooden block and a pin hammer,
applied to one of the protruding element sections, in an attempt to
"drift" the concentric insulator along and out of the grip of the outer
cover, but although the insulator moved a little, the dimples held secure.
The mechanics of concentric trap designs are similar, and in the past I
have cleaned out ants nests from Hygain traps, and having undone the the
outer cover fixing screw, all that was required to dismantle the trap was
a gentle application of pressure, and the outer cover was easy to remove.
I know others have had similar trap problems, please, put me out of my
misery, how did you resolve it.
Sincerely, John. G3JVC/GM3JVC.
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