BOO HOO

[boss]

After only two weeks my new orbitter ariel has died.
after parking up to take a break i decided to get the spanners and allen keys out to check everything was hunkydorey, climbed the ladder to be greeted with just the spring the whip part was gone .
so its worth checking that everything is tight every now and then so be warned
the anoying part is i think i know wher it came off half way around a 100 mile round trip on a broken branch from last nights wind

[chris9]

I have had that happen on a couple of my tractors.

I now loktite the allen grub screw in nice and tight.

however, if you do this as i have done and you need to replace the whip, it is almost impossible to remove the grub screw without rounding it off....

you can't win... damed if you do locktite, damed if you don't

thunderpole sell spare whips..

chris

[boss]

do they sell the whips on the website or by phone??????
reason i ask is i couldnt find it on the website

[chris9]

you'll have to ring them.
Chris

[stampman]

the do sell them

[boss]

well since loseing the whip ive put the small springer back on checked swr and its of the scale whatever i do which is a shame as i had the outher one down to 1.3

[chris9]

seems odd. have you done all the usual continuity checks on the coax, mount, ground and antenna?

chris

[boss]

not checked all that as battery has died in the meter. any how after some fine adjustments managed to get it down to about 3 on the swr after cuting 5mm of the whip looks like i need to cut more but broke the cutters doing the first 5mm, but should this be that far out on a supposedly pre tuned ariel

[chris9]

i would not do any cutting until I was sure that proper ground plane contact is made and coax cable tested as these will affect swr loads.

also you must swr on channel 1 and 40 and see which is worse then shorten or lenthen accordingly.
worse on 40 than 1 means antenna too long and vice versa.

chris

[stampman]

take pre tuned antenna with a pinch of salt depends on ground plane

[boss]

well got to wait for new battery, but the ground plane,earth should be ok as cable guttermount and attatchments have not been touched as it was just the arial that was swaped over.

[boss]

can things get any worse lastnight ordered a new ariel
anyway in work today i hear a thump get to the farm to make the delivery the small orbiter ive got and guttermount are at a angel get back to yard climb ontop to find the guttermount has snaped so got to make anouther order for a new mount

[stampman]

aint life fun

[boss]

well just an update due to being busy in work not had time to do much after getting a new ariel and opting for a mirror mount finaly set everything up. after running a cable for the earth ground tried swr no joy checked cables al ok now the strange thing is when keying the mic on ref and you give the ariel a good rock the needle will fluctuate on swr meter any ideas

p.s hope this makes sense and sorry for the bad spelling

[stampman]

sound like a bad connection