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Wilson 5000 rebuild
- Thread starter The Mad Scientist
- Start date
i never really gave it that kind of thought. i don't think that there is much interest in having these rebuilt when they give up the goat.
DXman
Yes, that's 3100 degrees F. Nine yrs of hard work.
Very nice bandit35!! 
I suppose I should open mine up and see what it looks like - it's still new.
I suppose I should open mine up and see what it looks like - it's still new.
thank you dxman, you never know what you may find inside the load on these antennas. this one was apposed to be new too.
still trying to figure out what to do with this new 5000 trucker i have laying around.
still trying to figure out what to do with this new 5000 trucker i have laying around.
bandit
the 5000 coil is a friends in the next town, he left it here for me to look over/give him ideas how to fix and mod it to take a longer fatter whip because i have done that to a few sirio antennas with good results,
he's using a modded sirio and not been back for the wilson yet.
the 5000 coil is a friends in the next town, he left it here for me to look over/give him ideas how to fix and mod it to take a longer fatter whip because i have done that to a few sirio antennas with good results,
he's using a modded sirio and not been back for the wilson yet.
bandit.. that stuff on the coil looked like grease now it's gone great job i have a wilson little wil not gonna atempt what you did
thank you megatron, it wasen't grease, but rater a silicone compound of some type which i am assuming was put there to keep the seperation of the coil turns, and or keep the coil vibration to a minimum. all of the disgusting green junk was the corriosion of the copper coil itself. i don't think that the silver electroplateing was done right as the water penetrated the plate causing the copper to corrode lifting some of the silver from the coil. pretty nasty.
i repaired a lil' will for one of my locals once, the coax had broken off right as it enters the plastic. i had to give that one a labotimy to resolder a new coax length directly to the coil. as far as i know it is still working. i don't blame you, it takes some time to get them looking like the one i did.
i repaired a lil' will for one of my locals once, the coax had broken off right as it enters the plastic. i had to give that one a labotimy to resolder a new coax length directly to the coil. as far as i know it is still working. i don't blame you, it takes some time to get them looking like the one i did.
Hi all, i did some testing with the antenna today and the best i could get the swr was 1:3:1. still not as good as the sirio at 1:1:1, but not to shabby as compared to what it was. i found the best spot for the coil wipe and soldered it into position, and coated the coil. i just have to re-epoxy the outer load casing back into position and it should be ready for service. i will upload some pic's in the near future.
Hi all, in my recerch between the sirio and the wilson i found two differences,
one, the electrical length of the wilson is about 102 1/4, while the electrical length of the sirio 5000 series is almost dead on at 108"
my modification to the wilson by adding the longer/wider width radiator only increased the electrical length to 103 11/16" due to the relocation of the coil wipe for the best swr on the wilsons short tapped coil design.
the other thing i noticed is the difference on how they are matched. the wilson's coil is short tapped, while the sirio is inductive/shunt matched, this seems how they are acheiving the dc grounding. this may be the bigger difference here as far as the swr goes. i am wondering if this is why the lowest swr acheiveable with the majority of the wilson 5000's is around 1:4:1 to 1:5:1?
perhaps i would have had better luck changing it to a inductive/shunt design?
perhaps one of the antenna experts could chime in on this?
one, the electrical length of the wilson is about 102 1/4, while the electrical length of the sirio 5000 series is almost dead on at 108"
my modification to the wilson by adding the longer/wider width radiator only increased the electrical length to 103 11/16" due to the relocation of the coil wipe for the best swr on the wilsons short tapped coil design.
the other thing i noticed is the difference on how they are matched. the wilson's coil is short tapped, while the sirio is inductive/shunt matched, this seems how they are acheiving the dc grounding. this may be the bigger difference here as far as the swr goes. i am wondering if this is why the lowest swr acheiveable with the majority of the wilson 5000's is around 1:4:1 to 1:5:1?
perhaps i would have had better luck changing it to a inductive/shunt design?
perhaps one of the antenna experts could chime in on this?
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Odd, almost every Wilson 5000 I have ever tuned I was able to get to 1.2:1 or better across the 40 channels. Mind you most of them were the older ones, but there were some newer ones in there as well.
The DB
i do not know myself. not having an older one to compare it to, i could only guess. perhaps there was such a vast quality control issue which would make sense as to why there is such a large varance in performance. i will post the last of the pic's this evening.
in anycase, i have done all i can do with it besides change the design which may be warrented to make it equal in performance to the sirio 5000 series antennae, which i have discovered in my research has a similar flaw like the wilsons do, which would be the top of the coil being set screwed into place in two positions rather than soldered, which could lead to swr issues over time. at this stage changing the design would be pointless. so i am going to epoxy the load casing back into position, make a final test and put it up for sale. although the project was fun to do, it was not worth the loss of $$$$ just for the learning experence.
i hope i have shed some light on why there seems to be so many problems with these antennae. if anyone at anytime would like to add to this thread please feel free to do so.
thanks to all for your interest.
in anycase, i have done all i can do with it besides change the design which may be warrented to make it equal in performance to the sirio 5000 series antennae, which i have discovered in my research has a similar flaw like the wilsons do, which would be the top of the coil being set screwed into place in two positions rather than soldered, which could lead to swr issues over time. at this stage changing the design would be pointless. so i am going to epoxy the load casing back into position, make a final test and put it up for sale. although the project was fun to do, it was not worth the loss of $$$$ just for the learning experence.
i hope i have shed some light on why there seems to be so many problems with these antennae. if anyone at anytime would like to add to this thread please feel free to do so.
thanks to all for your interest.
Hi all, here are the last of the pic's of the antenna project. going to do a final test just to see what it will do. the coil has been coated, and the mast machined for the larger diameter whip. very little material was removed from the mast section. i have my doughts of it breaking, the center stack inside the load would break before the mast does. it seems to be rock solid. i will run it on the vehicle for a couple of weeks to see how it works.......
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