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5/8 Wave groundplane 1.5:1 SWR all over the band

mattsowders1989

mattsowders1989

Active Member
Jan 18, 2017
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Central KY
It's a Hy-Gain Super Penetrator 500 but the coax is fed at the match directly. Same location that the SO-239 was connected. Below Ch.1 the SWR starts climbing to about a 1.9:1. Same with above Ch.40. stays around 1.5:1 on the regular 40. All my grounds are good. No power lines or anything around and its 50 Ft in the air on a 5 Ft mast pipe. Tower is buried 3 Ft in the ground. Not sure what happened. Didn't used to be that high. Any thoughts?
 

Hello All: Not sure what you mean about feeding the coax at the match directly?

"It's a Hy-Gain Super Penetrator 500 but the coax is fed at the match directly. Same location that the SO-239 was connected."

Maybe a photo showing the coax to match directly connection, would be a help. And as said before checking the coax for loss called Insertion Loss and bad connections would be a good call. Measure the carrier output at the radio, then at the end of the coax. should be around .5 to 1 dB approx. Something like 4 watts carrier at the radio, and 3.5 watts at the end of the coax is approx. .5 dB. dB = P1 / P2 Lod10 x 10

The coax manufacture web site or even another manufacture wed site should have a dB loss per 100 feet at around 30 Mc, which would be close. See:
https://www.universal-radio.com/catalog/cable/coaxperf.html

I have seen coaxes have water in them that in some cases causes the coax to have more loss which results in a lower SWR and wider bandwidth, than normal, doesn't sound like your case. Maybe a antenna check of all the lengths and connections. Good luck, please let us know what you find the fix is.

Jay in the Great Mojave Desert
 
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1.5.1 is a very good SWR & there is ZERO chance that anyone can or ever would hear a difference in your signal if it were 1.1.1.nor will you see or hear any difference.Don't stress over things that make ZERO difference.They put a RED area on an SWR meter for a reason & 1.5.1 is nowhere near that RED area.I for sure would not be trying to tune it but if you feel stressed about it then go ahead but it's a waste of time & energy.You may feel free too quote me on that as well.If having a 1.1.1 SWR was so important then everyone would talk on a Dummy Load & few people would ever hear them.

SIX-SHOOTER
 
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mattsowders1989 said:
Absolutely! 1.5:1 is unacceptable to me. Too much reflect that can damage my equipment.

Well i feel stupid. It was a bad jumper. Sorry guys and thanks for all of your help!

73, 677
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Well crap....I was looking forward to 3 or 4 more pages of posts stating what the problem was!........you just killed the thread!:D
 
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jessejamesdallas said:
Well crap....I was looking forward to 3 or 4 more pages of posts stating what the problem was!........you just killed the thread!:D
Click to expand...

No He didn't,.. We can kick this around for a few pages.



mattsowders1989 said:
Absolutely! 1.5:1 is unacceptable to me. Too much reflect that can damage my equipment.. edit...
Click to expand...

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