[TowerTalk] KT34XA

[Jeff Singer]

Joe Humet wrote:
Joe - 

Many, many hams use this antenna, and for most, the swr is just fine.
Beautiful even. This antenna is pretty simple. I believe that you have
not set things up exactly according to KLM's manual, or have done some
mods to the original design which you may or may not even be aware of,
but which you have not mentioned.

For example, have you used any cleaning solution that you have not
mentioned, or have you painted any parts? Have your changed the feed
arrangement in ANY way? Have you grounded any elements? Is ANY water
(even just a drop) still inside the tubes from an agressive cleaning?
Any of these things will DRAMATICALLY change the swr on this particular
antenna. 

Also, even though the blue end caps LOOK fine, they may NOT be. If you
have hammered them at all, they would be the most suspect items. And I
wonder HOW you checked your coax. Did you try substituting another coax
to see what would happen? Just 'checking' the coax for impedance &
shorts won't tell the story of a wet line when you put a little power to
it.

Is there a huge 40-mtr monster close by? Also - have you gotten a copy
of the "latest" prescribed measurements from KLM? 

Look closely at these things. The kt34xa is NOT a very forgiving beast,
but when set to specs and constructed exactly as intended, it works
really fine, and the swr is very low everywhere. Good luck!

73 de Jeff K2KV
k2kv@netusa.net
--------------------------

> Ok all you antenna experts out there..
> This is were I'm at with this thing. I have replaced the balun (made no
> change)and cleaned all the joints and connections, checked and cleaned
> all of the cap tubes,reset all dimensions to factory spec.
> With it 25 feet in the air the swr sucks. On 20 the swr goes from
> 1.7 @ 14.000 to at best 1.5 at 14.300 and seems to be flat @ 14.277, too
> high in the band. On 15 it is flat at 20.603 (a bit out of the band)
> and the srw goes from 1.7 @ 21.000 to 2.0 @ 21.200 then back to 1.8 @
> 21.300. This is the biggest problem. On 10 its 2.6 @ 28.000 drops to 1.5
> @ 28.500 and goes back up to 1.8 @ 29.000.
> I have tried everything I can think of.
> I know we have some real sharp people on here and some have the same
> antenna. Please H E L P, before I cut this thing up and put up a g5rv
> (ugg).
> Thanks a bunch......
> Joe
>

--
FAQ on WWW:               http://www.contesting.com/towertalkfaq.html
Submissions:              towertalk@contesting.com
Administrative requests:  towertalk-REQUEST@contesting.com
Problems:                 owner-towertalk@contesting.com
Search:                   http://www.contesting.com/km9p/search