Wilson 5000 rebuild

[The Mad Scientist]

ok, i have managed to clean the coil, which took allot. had a long soak in a chamical bath consisting of Acetone, toluene, Xylene, methanol, ethylbenzene, and nitromethane to desolve the silicone rubber to keep the "scratching" of the coil to a minimum. but it really didn't matter.

as you can see from the pic's that the moisture had penetrated through the silver plate to the copper underneath causing the copper to tarnish and "lift" the silver plate from the copper coil. at this point i am going to reserch to see if it would be economical to have the coil and the brass parts silver plated, if not then it will stay as it is. not sure exactly if being in this condition would really matter as i won't be using lab grade testing equiptment to see the results.

 

[The Mad Scientist]

Guys have been using mineral oil in 2kw dummy loads -for years- w/o failure . . .

yes i know.... seems to be a hit and miss with that. some do and some don't...perhaps it is the quality of the oil that is used? i don't really know.

seen some the the hv transformers up on the phone poles go bad like that. had one opened up and smelled horrible. perhaps it had been comtaminated?

 

[The Mad Scientist]

i have soldered the connection at the top of the coil and reinstalled it on it's base. i still have to machine the mast to accept a sirio whip and tune the load for best swr. sorry i have posted much on this lately as i haven't had the time to get to finishing it. i will post some pic's of the progress shortly.....

 

[fnkycoldmedina]

looking forward to it .thanks for the contribution.

 

[The Mad Scientist]

no problem, i figure rather than it being a constant negative, i would try to turn it into something positive......at least try anyway........

 

[northern35s]

I've enjoyed reading the thread, and the pictures, so look forward to hearing how you finish off the project

 

[The Mad Scientist]

thank you, i appreciate the interest.

 

[The Mad Scientist]

hello gentelman, here are some updated pic's af the point i am at now with this project. a couple of things, i had the mag waterproofed with a plasti-kote rubber compound such as the kind they have out that you dip tool handles into, but in a spray form. i have it removed from the mag and components as i wasen't sure if it was affecting the ground or not.

as you can see i have the components re-assembled and installed on the plastic base. the termination of the coil at the top has been soldered, and all of the brass parts in the center tube assembly have been barnished, re-soldered, and epoxyed back into place. i haven't decided weather i want to manufacture a seperate aluminum mast to accept the sirio whip or machine the origonal one out to accept it. as i am not totaly sure that once i tune the load to accept the full size sirio whip if it will be able to tune the ten meter band or not.

i do have a question for the antenna experts out there, being that i do not have a MFJ 259b i was just going to solder a small lead wire off of the coil wipe with an alligator clip soldered to one end for ease of tuning. now i am wondering if by the coil wipe passing through the coil will it interfear with trying to find the best location for optimal swr? thanks for your assisstance.

 

[The Mad Scientist]

here are some pic's of the mag, and the assembly. i will, due to time constraints just machine out the origonal mast for the wider whip. also with reading of concerns of the mast "breaking" with the use of the sirio whip i figured what better way to find out. starting to look allot better than what i started out with.

 

[bob85]

the coil on the one i have in pieces had been cut shorter than the one you have bandit35,
i had to bend the coil to make the wire poke out the far side of the brass clamp, it had been clamped on one side only from new.

 

[15minigrass]

Now Re-Brand that sucker MS. Mad Scientist Built!!! Nice rebuild. One of a memeber on QS has one that just rusted out in his 6 years of owning it. That is one SOLID re-build there. This is why I go with open coils and or homemade mag mounts(Via local 447 Cool Change and Mr. Coconut 1-95) Iʻll post some pics of my mount tomorrow. Aloha James.

 

[The Mad Scientist]

i know i seen that. i rebuilt the mag on my 1000 about 5 times in 8 years. hmm, ms built. never thought of that......the anti-wilson...LOL. nah, i will be lucky if this thing will even work. thank you for you complement.

 

[The Mad Scientist]

the coil on the one i have in pieces had been cut shorter than the one you have bandit35,
i had to bend the coil to make the wire poke out the far side of the brass clamp, it had been clamped on one side only from new.

i remember you saying that. i was lucky enough that this one was cut to the right length.

 

[The Mad Scientist]

Hi all, i got to completeing the assembly for a quick test. and i found that by adding the wider diameter whip made it quite a bit more broadbanded, it was left full length of 70 13/16". i thought it would be difficult to tune, but was actually quite easy. i will do a more detailed fine tuning on it tomorrow with some actual numbers on the swr curve as i had a short amount of time with it today. i do know that the lowest i could get it was 1:3:1. in the short tests that i did with my locals here on 11 meter, the Rx seems to be dead on with the sirio with the same low noise level, and the Tx is dead on as compared to the sirio as well. i did test it on ten meter with another whip that i had cut for the sirio of 64 5/8" this didnt fair as well as the lowest i could get it to tune was 1:5:1. while still good, i was hoping for better. the tests were done with a rci6900f25 first generation bipolar version radio at ten watts output, measured with a yeasu ys-60 swr/power meter. the second whip in the pics is the one i used for ten meter tesing.

when i figure out the sweet spot, i will remove the tuning wire and solder the coil wipe in place, and run the same simple tests, then work on re-sealing the housing. i have a few ideas, but not exactly sure which one i will use yet. i will also have to use some kind of slilcone compound after the coil is coated to keep the coil seperation, and vibration to a minimum. here are some pic's of the assembly with outer load casing still removed.

 

[bytor]

Nice job..