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Rain + Maco 5/8gp & Swr?

BammBamm

Instigators ...173 on the southside.
May 24, 2010
625
302
93
51
Steger,Illinois
I installed my Maco 5/8 GP on 60' of fence top rail (3 X 20') with another 5' piece buried at the base and all connections between poles where sanded and then bolted together. Mast runs against my chimney to the 48' mark and is firmly secured at 6' intervals and 3 antenna chimney straps spread out between the top 8' and also guyed from the top. I have 75' of LMR-400 running to my SWR meter and 3' of 213 to my Magnum 257hp. When installed I tuned for 27.385 as my lowest SWR and had a 1.5 at about 26.575 and again at about 27.875 and all seemed good in life......until today. I came home from work after a brief storm and fired up the radio and checked SWR as I ALWAYS do and found my SWR where flat on 26.665 and 27.385 was now at 1.8! I went out and tried to shake the mast to shake water off but didn't do much as SWR remained the same. Is this normal and will it go back to normal when dry or what's going on here? I have a ground wire from the antenna mount to a ground rod and my radio and power supply are also grounded to a ground rod and then both ground rods are connected with a 6' piece of 2 gauge wire.
 

My guess would be water in the coax/connector. During a rain I would expect the reflect to rise maybe. But afterward if the reflect is still high it's probably the coax.
 
mine would do that until i changed the wire that goes from the coax connector to the loop,,, put a bigger size of wire and silicone sealed the top of connector and the clamp on loop i silicone dielectric greased it no problem since.....
 
I wrapped it with electrical tape but will have to lower it and re seal it I guess. SWR went back to normal by this morning after it dried I'm guessing.
 
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