PlasticSpray coating ground radials

[LightFoot]

Hello Again,
I was wondering is there any adverse Reaction to Rubber coating or plastic spray coating the ground radials of an antenna? This is only for the ground radials and not the hot vertical. Ingredients in this spray can are as follow, propane, aliphatic petroleum distillate, n-butane, xylene, methyl ethyl ketone, methyl-n-amyl ketone and ethylbenzene. Name brand is by Performix Plastic Dip and can be acquired at home depo. Thanks Guys. Just want to know if its ok thats all. Happy holidays from Northern Cali................

 

[Robb]

If it is aluminum; the only thing to do is to take it down every couple of years and take it apart and remove the old fasteners and replace with stainless steel ones if cheaper steel screws were used. You don't need to spray anything on the bare metal. Take and clean only one section at a time. Clean all of the joints and connections with a wire brush, scrubbing pad, or medium grit-sand paper. Put it all back together and clean the coax connector. If the coax cable is cheap, old, and cracked - replace it. If water had a chance to get into the cracks in the coax, it will only create troubleshooting headaches if/when retuning the SWR adjustment becomes necessary. I did one recently.
Should be good to go...

Coating aluminum tubing with a plastic coating - even if it just the radials - may very well make them heavier and increase their wind load by having to support more weight. It will also trap water between the coating and the metal and support corrosion.

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[towerdog]

i dont see any reason why it would. I painted a few antennas and noticed no effects. However I would weatherproof all my connections and if i thought my coax was going to rot outdoors I would seal it in pvc conduit, but I am more accustomed to placing antennas at 400' on tower with the idea not to have to return in 2 years or else we may end up having to return and fix it free of charge.

 

[LightFoot]

OK. Here it is. My antenna is a IMAX2000 with the ground plane kit. What i did was get rid of this junk kit and pre fabricated my own Super heavy aluminum bracket because the original bracket for the groundplane kit rusted after 1 rain storm. Bent the corners at 30 degrees as opposed to 45 degrees. Placed four 102 inch stainless steel whips. I also have a Balun under the feed and Isolated the Antenna from the mast and using LMR400 Cable and let me tell ya after these mods this antenna smokes. Now what I noticed was now when it rains SWR goes up a bitt with 300 watts. When I had the four 6 feet fiberglass groundplanes it didnt do that. Please I dont want the six fotters back on because for true resonance on frequency 8 feet is better. So thats why I was going to paint them. Not because of rust. Just to insulate them from the rain. So now ya know my story. Thanks Guys and best wishes all around...............................

 

[mackmobile43]

The only thing I might do since there is stainless steel and aluminum combined is to use noalox which will help prevent any corrosion due to using dis-similar metals at their connection points.

 

[W5LZ]

If you want to paint, or plastic coat those radials, it shouldn't have any remarkable affect (good or bad) in performance. As long as no insulator is 'bridged', I really don't see why a conductive type coating would hurt anything. With a 'ground' system, it would only mean a slightly (very slightly) increase in surface area. Same for the 'radiating' element with a slight case of "but's". If it's metal to start with, big deal. If it's fiberglass, not so good, don't do that, right? [That 'radiating element' is a particularly crappy way of describing the vertical part of a groundplane antenna, since that ground/groundplane radiates too.]
Rust. Rust ~is~. If it can rust, and if it's exposed to weather, expect it to happen unless you can prevent it in some way. Using some conductive metal that doesn't rust is a very nice idea. If you can't for some reason, then do your best to keep it from rusting (or if you really wanna get 'picky', call it oxidizing ).
Water changing SWR.
Good news and bad news! The good part is that it should only cause a very small change in SWR. The bad news is that coating the affected parts isn't going to stop that change. The change isn't from 'conduction' of the water on the thing, it's from induction, and the only way to prevent that is by keeping that water a fairly sizable distance from whatever is being inductively changed by that water's 'nearness'. "Do what?" It just means get used to it, you ain't gonna stop it unless you keep that water off the antenna completely, as in a 'radome' sort of thingy, maybe? Good luck! It happens with ALL antennas, just to varying degrees. If the change in SWR is large enough to make any difference, then you need to take another look at the whole thing, something ain't right.
- 'Doc

if you do that 'radome' thingy, would you take pictures?

 

[LightFoot]

Thank you for the reply. I just thought it was curious how with the fiberglass whips it didn't move and now with the stainless steal whips there was some movement In Standing wave Ratio due to the rain. But then again its still good.Thank you and all that responded to this thread. And again Happy Thanksgiving.........