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HF Beacons / Re: Is the Desert Whooper OK?
« on: April 22, 2024, 1719 UTC »
Thanks for the signal reports! Here is what we found:
The broken coax anchor allowed the antenna to sway with the wind. Due to a flaw of our balun mounting arrangement the balun could be rotated a few degrees as the antenna swayed. This caused one of the two antenna connecting wires to break.
DW may have kept running for a while but eventually the transmitter's output Mosfet failed. Possibly high VSWR damaged it
We replaced the Mosfet, added a coax cable anchor and reconnected the antenna wire to the balun. If we visit again we will bring out a balun with better mounting/suspension points.
Relocating DW would be a hard decision to make. It is along a path where the bighorn sheep migrate and why we are collecting temperature data
The broken coax anchor allowed the antenna to sway with the wind. Due to a flaw of our balun mounting arrangement the balun could be rotated a few degrees as the antenna swayed. This caused one of the two antenna connecting wires to break.
DW may have kept running for a while but eventually the transmitter's output Mosfet failed. Possibly high VSWR damaged it
We replaced the Mosfet, added a coax cable anchor and reconnected the antenna wire to the balun. If we visit again we will bring out a balun with better mounting/suspension points.
Relocating DW would be a hard decision to make. It is along a path where the bighorn sheep migrate and why we are collecting temperature data