Three of our Members have spent nearly eight hours up at the Clubrooms this week replacing and tuning the eighty and forty metre dipoles for the Club Station.
A fault in the co-axial cable proved very elusive but was finally tracked to a lack of contact between the earth braid and the little metal collar that bears up against the connector to complete the earth contact. Once located it was fixed by removing a little of the outer sheath and soldering the braid to the collar. This made it behave properly.
The team then started on the laborious process of analysing the antennas, lowering them to adjust the length, raise them again to full height and retest the s.w.r.
This took quite a while to get right and accounted for most of the time spent.
Because of the location of the tie off points for the support ropes this was a very tedious job as the mounting points must be kept at a height where passing children, (and others), who may have a streak of sabotage in them can drop our antennas as the Club is located next to a Primary School and alongside the Mt. Gambier Community Garden. Barbed wire also presents a hazard as the tie off points at one end are on top of a security fence surrounding the Community Garden which is part of the Old Gaol Complex.
A very big “Thank you” goes out to Tom, VK5EE, Owen, VK5HOS and Trevor, VK5NC for their patience and persistence.