No, and I wasn't sure how to accomplish this. It's stainless hardware, but I'm guessing I should probably wrap the feedpoint up in self-annealing tape and Scotch 88 just to be safe.
- pjd -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] <[email protected]> On Behalf Of Dave Cole Sent: Wednesday, June 3, 2020 7:27 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [Elecraft] FIXED--was NOT the feedline Hi, Is the open end of that feedline where it connects to the antenna weatherproofed? 73, and thanks, Dave (NK7Z) https://www.nk7z.net ARRL Volunteer Examiner ARRL Technical Specialist ARRL Asst. Director, NW Division, Technical Resources On 6/2/20 8:15 PM, Peter Dougherty wrote: > HI all, > > A postscript to the problem. First off, a huge thank you to the many replies received. I was fortunate that the problem was not in the KPA-1500 as I'd originally feared. > > Much troubleshooting within the past few days. Originally the amp was "iffy" on the old M-squared 6m5, and problematic (faulting) during damp or wet weather. This prompted the replacement of both the antenna and feedline. > > The hard faults were still occurring, until it was suggested the Ten-Tec 238 tuner that I was using exclusively for the built-in antenna switch was now the issue. I took this out of line today, and lowered the tower to fine-tune the LFA's feed point and now everything is humming along just nicely. The KPA-1500 is happy at 1.5 kW and showing an SWR of 1.2 in dry conditions. I will keep my fingers crossed that the wet weather expected in the next day or so won't bother it all that much. > > The final step was to move the 6m feedline from the secondary inlet box to the main antenna switch on the big tower. The downside here is I now have an additional 70 feet of BuryFlex in the line, so I'm guessing a total of about 1.5 to 1.7dB of feedline loss. This is something I would like to address in the future with an eye to dropping it below 1dB. > > Screencaps: > https://www.dropbox.com/s/1y4vyd17pbgq8ty/6m%20via%20the%20antenna%20s > witch.png?dl=0 > > And > > https://www.dropbox.com/s/5x8n0bum4nwcxqp/6m%20LFA%20-%20SWR%20after%2 > 0tuning.png?dl=0 > > And for the balun discussion, this is what's in place, before the > double-walled heat-shrink was applied: > https://www.dropbox.com/s/18pgthl67rtq3bl/2020-05-31%2017.51.08.jpg?dl > =0 > > - pjd > > ______________________________________________________________ > Elecraft mailing list > Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft > Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm > Post: mailto:[email protected] > > This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email > list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html Message delivered to > [email protected] > ______________________________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:[email protected] This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html Message delivered to [email protected] ______________________________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:[email protected] This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html Message delivered to [email protected]
