silver rod swr

thanks John yes the pl would screw into the ant half way then drop down again no good anyway im thinking of going for the RG x8  anyway, so see what happens with Mark at rocket radio

yes if that was the problem then hopefully a quick fix i don't have to start faffing around having to take the rod down etc, just change the coax and the job is a good un 

I hear what youre saying but a couple of things
That type of antenna doesnt need a ground
With one its also become a lightning conducter

thanks chazwozza in that case i will take it off and do without , i sent the coax back to rocket radio yesterday so see what they come up with,

right Mark emailed me this morning to say they had received the coax i sent them last week and they had put a new plug on one end and the coax is now in the return post so hopefully it will work ok , and i have taken off the earth wire as chazwozza said it didnt need one so im looking forward to seeing how things go

Hiya 

Just a thought  I put my sliver rod up with a 50mm overlap at each joint then slowly shortened the antenna at the bottom joint until swr got down to  1.2 . .
hope this helps . 

P.S. you might have markings already on poles but just in case you haven't .

Cheers John

yes thanks John they are all marked with felt tip so if the weather is ok i will give it a looking at tomorrow

Wouldnt hurt to wind an air choke to

Hi chazwozza what's an air choke 

Its where you wind your coax around a former to help prevent common mode current etc helps with noise and keeping rf out of the shack probably better to google/utube it 
At 27mhz its something like 6 turns around a 4 1/2 inch former at the base of the aerial

http://www.karinya.net/g3txq/chokes/

Lionel, I noticed that you didn't answer John Patricks question regarding understanding forward/reflected on the swr meter! (John asked if you know how to operate it correctly because we don't know your level of expertise)

Are you checking with a meter built into the radio or a standalone one?
If it's built into the radio I would check with a separate one, if it is with a standalone are you sure that is working correctly.

All the best 
Tony

ps. The choke suggested by chazwozza won't get a swr of 3 down to a reasonable level but as he stated may well bring your noise level down.

Hi Tony sorry about that and yes i looked on the thunderpole website forum and how to swr an ant which shows how to do it, and even though the president mc kinley has it's own built in swr meter im using a wipe model 175 seperate swr meter and matcher  which im pretty confident is working ok thanks

plus if i keep having problems i will take screws out of the bush and mount the ant on a small 2" pole

skyrider wrote:

plus if i keep having problems i will take screws out of the bush and mount the ant on a small 2" pole

When I first started up on my return to CB about 18/20 months ago I simply screwed the Silver Rod via the fixing plate onto a fencepost, the SWR was 1.4 without altering the length.
The second one I also did the same and that also worked with the markings on each section, that was on a fence post which was close to some trees and the SWR was 1.7 but with a slight adjustment got it to 1.3

Have you got another antenna you could try on the same cable to at least get an idea if it is the antenna or cable something else?

ps. It's hard work with two threads running the same situation. See Here

yes sorry about the two threads Tony i will try and keep them to just one , at the moment i have just the one ant and length of coax, im going to cut off the cable ties when it stops lashing down and see if that makes a difference. i have asked Victor if he can put both threads on to one so we will see if it can be done

No need to apologise Lionel I know what it's like to be excited about getting on air with new gear only for it to be a no-go, then loose track of where you have asked in desperation.
Ah I thought you had removed the cable ties, that can't help especialy if everything is wet/damp so will keep fingers crossed for you.

Cheers,
Tony

ps, I see you live in the NW, No rain down south!

it's been raining nearly every day for about three weeks and no good for my job as a gardener 

just had another go at the rod in the rain and chopped off the cable ties and tried it for  swr and now it is 2-3 so heading in the right direction still room for improvement though thanks Tony   ps  we have just had hailstones now

Hailstones, what are they? Good news with the SWR so far, if you have a fencepost or anything similar near the antenna position away from the tree it would be worthwhile getting wet and trying that. It doesn't have to be high up as long as the actual radiating part of the Silver rod is not too close to anything else.

'A thought' if you become a naturist whilst doing that it's easier to dry skin than clothes.

dont fancy that Tony it aint warm enough any way been out again and cleared another bit of a branch and a few twigs close by

Lionel, any news yet or is the weather still pants up your neck of the woods?

Tony

Hi guys sorry about the delay getting back to you i bet you thought i had done a runner , my laptop threw a wobbler so i had to take it to the computer doctor and just got it back this afternoon , well the story so far is that i cut all of the branches and all the foliage off the bush and remounted the rod right at the top so the height now is about 24 1/2 feet so now im finally getting somewhere and now im a lot happier and the swr is now 1.5

so things are still ok over here and i think that is with the new position of the antenna at the top of the tree so thanks for all your help and input guys much appreciated and in the next few weeks over christmas i might be trying another radio so we will see how that goes