Dipole DOWN!

A one act play of intrigue, suspense and futility!

Narration: (with authority) “What do the letters OMG …. WTF …. ROFLMAO … BRB …. LOL … and IMHO mean? To the average teen-ager, they're as much a part of daily life as breathing. But this play isn't about teen-agers. In the world of our hero, these letters mean just one thing — he's having a bowl of alphabet soup for dinner.

Hero: “It's almost time for the weekly HF net, I better finish up my soup and get ready! … Hey, who the hell am I talking to? I'm the only one home besides the dog?”

Dog: (stares silently with a “What a dumb butt” look on his face.)

Narrator: Our Hero finishes his soup with a flourish and a slurp, washing his hands and heads to the shack. There are 9 minutes until the net starts.

Hero: “Hmm … preamble? Check. Announcements? Check. Pad and paper? Check. Tuner set and adjusted? Hmmmm…

Narrator: Hero tunes to a spot on the dial near the net frequency and briefly transmits a carrier for tuning purposes.

Hero: (Stares intently at metering display) WTF??

Narrator: Noticing that the usual settings aren't working, our Hero readjusts the Heathkit Big Honkin' Tuner 2060 to find a point of lowest SWR.

Hero: Wow, this is really different! I've never had to change the tuner settings so much in the years I've run this dipole.

Narrator: Our Hero tunes across the band and notices signals are dramatically weaker than usual. Having experienced an intermittent problem that appeared to be a coax jumper, he then turns to checking the existing coax jumpers. Finding nothing obviously wrong (and after using an VOM to check the jumpers), he looks elsewhere.

Hero: I've been using this Alinco DX-77 in the shack the last few days … could I have fried the input of my FT-2000 by transmitting on the same band?

Narrator: Overloading the front end of the transceiver appears to be the suspected problem. With only minutes to go before the net begins, our Hero tries the other transceivers in the shack.

Hero: Alas, WTF again!!! Signal are way down on my Tempo 2020 — strong signals that should be 20 over are barely moving the S-meter! Is my antenna still up in the air??

Narrator: Checking from his window, Hero confirms the antenna is up. Not sure what the hell is going on, with just minutes to go, Hero decides to go forward with the net.

Hero: CQ, CQ, CQ … CQ for the Weekly Blab, a net that meets each week at this time on the frequency. The weekly blab takes check-ins from in-state and out-of-state licensed Amateur Radio operators … —

Narrator: Our Hero's VOX drops in a pause and he hears some of the usual Weekly Blab Net participants talking. Again our Hero is left thinking “WTF?”

Hero: BR549 this is K4DOA … are you copying me?

BR549: ” …. I don't know where he is, Joe. I think he forgot the net …”

Hero: “This is K4DOA … I'm here guys, how copy?”

ABC123: “Well, with the summertime activities, its easy to forget these things.”

Hero: “Larry? Larry? This is K4DOA … are you guys hearing me at all???”

Narrator: Our Hero hears nothing but static from his radio speaker. Having already checked that the antenna is up in the air, he dives into his coax cabling and switching network.

Hero: “Hmmm … I have my main six-position antenna switch that I use to switch rigs and to switch to my other two radio desks. First I'll check the coax, then I'll check the switches …. could a lightning strike have blow a contact on a switch?”

Narrator: With patience, our Hero checks every jumper and each coax switch in his 3-switch system. There's no deficit, and everything checks out fine.

Hero: “Nothing's amiss … which makes sense. If I had an open cable or shorted one, how would I have gotten a very low SWR match on my antenna tuner? I wound up with a very good, albeit different, match!”

Narrator: With darkness fast approaching and his shack torn asunder, our Hero decides on a closer inspection of the dipole outside.

Hero: “Well, both ends are up, there's nothing wrong here.”

Narrator: Our Hero goes to the shack window to trace the feedline — 300-ohn twinlead — and realizes the feedline enters the window, but it no longer connects to the dipole 35 feet overhead!

Hero: “Eureka!!”

THE END

Sorry, Dear Reader, that I took you on this flight of .. fancy? Wasted Time? Boredom?? … in order to report my feedline departed my dipole at some point in the past 10 days.

It makes sense now, too, because for several weeks I have had an intermittent problem with the antenna … there was a “crackling” sound and the signals would jump up and down. I felt sure it was an intermittent coax jumper to blame. Obviously not!

So now I have to get the antenna down, which will take some assistance from my son. In the past, I used the feedline to pull the antenna down at the center. Without the feedline, I'll have to pull it from one end or the other, reattach the feedline and put it back up again. This antenna has been up several years, and my fear is that the rope may have been trapped in the fork of the branch on which it hangs. Hopefully I can get it down … I have a very large nylon rope on it (I had to rehang it about 2 or 3 years ago). I'm going to stick with the 300-ohn twin lead because that's what my homebrew center insulator is designed to use.

I have the center insulator of plexiglas with slots in it as stress relief for the feedline. I'm not sure where it broke yet, but I'm betting it was rubbed through on a branch or broken by a limb that fell. It's been intermittent for some time.

The funny thing here is how well the balanced feedline actually works … without an antenna I was able to successfully load up the feedline on the ground to full output through the tuner … and I assume due to the fact that each side cancels the other, not a soul heard me on the air! That feedline wasn't radiating at all, lol!

Things like this seldom go as easily as you might think, so I probably should get started on it sooner and be prepared for problems.

An antenna project I've really wanted to do is to have a couple of telephone poles placed on the place so I could put up a multiband horizontal loop. I have a tower that's never been put up either … one of these days … lol.

Antenna work awaits, among other things today, so better get crackin'. 73 es CUL … de KY4Z … dit dit