james! i feel for ya bro!
i have to admit to a little head shaking and "oh man you poor guy" chuckling when i read your post. LOL
the good news is that most likely, your IMAX 2000 is just fine.
the bad news is that you have most likely already pulled out a few hairs over this one.
you see, the IMAX is DC grounded for lightning protection.
this means that if you check the center pin and shield of the coax connector on the antenna, you will show a short in your ohmmeter.
this is ok because that short is through a coil and at 27mhz that coil is not an RF short.
sure, to DC that coil just looks like a piece of wire connecting the center pin and shield together. but to RF, that coil has characteristics and properties that allow it to form a 50 ohm load to match your coax.
take a look at the schematic drawing in the "imax 2000 exposed" down towards the bottom, just above where it says "closing statements".
you will see a coil connecting the center pin of the coax right to the shield.
so, you can see why when you had one end of your coax connected to the antenna, and were soldering on a new connector at the radio end, everytime you got done and checked it for shorts, sure enough, you had one!
mustve been very frustrating.
so, now im guessing that the old imax was taken down in frustration?
if its still up, check your SWR. if its still below 2:1, then you are fine, and can cancel your order for the new antenna. (hope you still can!)
sorry i didnt catch this post sooner, but im off work on fridays and dont use the net at home much at all.
hope i caught you in time,
LC
