Topband: Bad tower shunt capacitor

[Don Beattie]

Jamie,

When I had a problem like that on a matching system, I had someone else key
the transmitter and watched the feedpoint at night. It took ten seconds to
see the problem ! Fireworks had nothing on what happened.

73

Don, G3BJ / G5W

-----Original Message-----
From: Topband [mailto:topband-bounces at contesting.com] On Behalf Of James C.
Hall, MD
Sent: 30 January 2014 00:27
To: topband at contesting.com
Subject: Topband: Bad tower shunt capacitor

I have an omega matched 120 foot tower and I apparently have a bad vacuum
variable capacitor. Upon applying more than about 300 watts, the SWR goes
off scale. Tuning it out and trying again, yields the same thing.

The question is which capacitor is the culprit. These are surplus Soviet
caps obtained from the Ukraine and, as I recall, the larger value capacitor
is the parallel one, not the series one. I could buy one of each and switch
one at a time and have a spare left over. Any suggestions ?

73, Jamie
WB4YDL

Sent from my iPad
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