[TowerTalk] A3S Continuing saga

[Gene Bigham]

Chuck Kraly went up and took the Van Gordon voltage balun off my A3S yesterday.  When it hit the ground I saw some droplets of water come off of it.  Upon examination both eye bolts on the sides showed some corrosion and were loose, one turning freely in place.
He placed the driven element from an A4S with an add on kit for 30 meters to replace my A3S driven element, as I wanted the additional band capability.  We measured all lengths according to Cushcraft instructions splitting the difference for the phone/cw settings as I work mostly PSK31.
The Centaur 3KW balun went up and was attached and the beam oriented as it had a bit of windmill to it and all hardware retighten.
Thank You Chuck.
All bands have a resonant point below that particular ham band but this is due to the addition of pig tails from the balun to the element.  Today if weather and time permit I will go on roof to shorten the element for each band a bit.
Looking over the A3S traps all are fine, no water or debris inside, element is completely resonant on all three bands.  It looks like the cheap balun was the culprit.
Live and learn.
Thanks to all who have commented to previous posts and many thanks to Chuck for climbing at KB0GU!
Gene Bigham