Topband: Dacron & varmits

[Gary Smith]

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