Up On The Roof...

No, we're not going to talk about James Taylor today...last week, a connection in the center insulator of my 80/15 'fan' dipole gave out. It is a Ten-Tec "Acrobat", and is fairly open on all sides, so I knew it was only a matter of time before the weather would take its toll. Well, it finally did.

I found out in the worst way...went to go for some PSK on 40/30m (Yeah, I know...using a 80/15 dipole for 40/30m? That's another story.) turned the antenna switch from my 20m dipole, and...silence. Borrowed a friend's MFJ analyzer...oh yeah, there's a short or open somewhere, got infinity SWR...up on the roof, and yup- the center conductor side of the coax has broken right off. So OK, let's fix it...but wait- there's too much tension on the dipole to fix it in place. OK, a trip to the tree in the front yard- climb the tree, undo the guy rope, lower the one end of the antenna, climb down the tree, carry the ladder back to the deck in the back yard, get BACK up on the roof...NOW we can fix the antenna!

Folks, this is NOT a fun connector to have to work with- especially when you are sitting on the roof, trying to a) brace yourself as to NOT fall off of the roof, b) hold the ends of the dipole so they don't do what they want to do (slide off the roof), and c) reconnect the dipole ends and the coax in the insulator. The whole process took about 2 hours. re-cut the coax feeder and got a clean end, did the same with the ends of the ladder line, and put everything back together JUST in time for the Monday night City Of Lights 10-10 net at 8:30pm (10m too on this dipole? Yeah, you'll hear how and why later).

I know, I know...why not just take the whole thing down and fix it on the ground? I mean, Eric you DO have your dipole hung so you can easily raise and lower it, right?

Um, no. But that's yet another story.