Notes on South America Tribander

9 July 2008

Replaced DE center insulator and two pipe straps. Cleaned all salt corrosion and Penetroxed the entire element. UV-proofed DE center insulator. Tests OK full power.

4 April 2011

Removed from mount a week ago and hung temporarily. Tower leg underneath cleaned and primed / epoxied. Antenna remounted today with lubricated hardware.

22 July 2016

See http://www.dxzone.com/cgi-bin/dir/jump2.cgi?ID=27655 per N7IR.

December 2018

VE3CX, Geoff, and Dorothy disassembled and cleaned all traps, installed new trap element insulators where needed, installed all new trap end caps, taped and tested all. Reinstalled December 6 on new Europe tower. See photos of the rehab.

21 February 2019

KB7Q and W0CG determined the feedline to be dead shorted. Antenna sounds several S-units down from comparison with F12 pointed in the same direction. W0CG ran antenna analyzer curves at the feedpoint coax on the tower and all looks OK except about 2:1 SWR on 20. Photos of the curves are this date at the coax pigtail at the antenna. Antenna is good.

22 February 2019

Installed new coax temporarily from tower to shack, RG-213/U. Curves in the shack looked good on 10, 15, 20 and signals sounded good also. Clear evidence that the old feedline is useless.

17 November 2019

Completed installation of 260 foot run of Heliax. Antenna works perfectly and SWR on all bands is good. Moved this cable to the top right of the left bulkhead to the spot freed up by the old US/JA yagi.