Notes on 80 Meter Ridge Dipole

17 November 2016

Poor SWR. Appeared that there was not an antenna there from MFJ at the W9NJY coax switch. Coax switch is behaving normally. Discovered an intermittent in the Ridge 80 coax at the connector where it goes into the 8 x 4 box. Cut off and put on a new PL-259 and that cured the intermittent. Now need to investigate on Ridge with an MFJ test. Could be coax or the balun.

5 February 2017

After checking EVERYthing else, removed the blue balun and brought it down to shack. Opened the watertight Carlon box and it was nearly 100% full of water. Coax connector badly corroded inside.

7 February 2017

After careful study of other baluns on site I decided the best approach was to clean up and try to re-hab the old balun because its mechanical design is perfect for the Ridge application. A cable balun would be too large, and no balun would be bad because it might run shield currents backwards into the W9NJY box. Cleaned all interior corrosion with wire brush and rag. Drilled two drain holes in the bottom of the box. Built temporary 80 dipole on the Ringo Ranger mast and tuned it. This gives perfect SWR. Tested with over 1 KW and all is good. Then applied epoxy to the inside side of the SO-239 and to the tops of antenna feedthrough bolts where the water got in. After epoxy cure will test at full KW for a couple of hours and look for any possible breakdown of the epoxy. If that is good, will seal the box and do some sprayed water tests.

New antenna constructed from #12 blue insulated stranded, very tough wire. Calculated length for 3.5 MHz is 66.85 ft/leg. Added 8 inches for connection at feedpoint, 22 inches at each end, and another 24 inches for errors. So I cut two lengths 71 ft 4 inches.

11 February 2017

Water spray tests under sink revealed that the water came in through tiny manufactured weep hole in Carlon box in top left corner, getting in from the outside thorough a paint bubble. Sealed these with epoxy and retest shows no leak. Tested again with box cover on and there is no leak.

16 February 2017

After coating with double coat of epoxy primer, W0CG, N1ZZ and N5OT installed the renewed antenna on the Ridge. Tuned for both CW (3530) and SSB (3740) and marked wire, and all works perfectly including a full power test from the shack. W9NJY box cabling returned to normal and all connections sealed. WI9WI supported us in the shack on 145.55 2 meter FM.