I came in late so may have missed a point or two.
The R8 is an end fed half wave vertical and the 'matching box' includes a common mode choke. It has a very low angle of radiation. If it is on the same vertical plane as your station, the antenna will 'hose' it with RF (have that situation here, so I'm waiting for the KAT500 to heat up the dipole; it's 50' away). Placing the R8 directly above your station puts you in a null, which may give enough lower signal strength to keep things content and the added height won't hurt either. This presumes that the 'matching box' contents are still effective as the ferrite has been known to crack. It is time to pop open the side of the black box and see how it looks inside (spider webs arcing, wires burned/intact etc.). I'd look for a cracked ferrite, which may show good SWR at low power, yet when it gets RF hot may do something completely sideways. What happens when you turn the Yagi away from your station (most nulls will be ~45 deg off of the rear)? When you add ferrites to the cables in the shack, don't forget that RF can enter at ANY point; audio, USB/serial etc); filter everything. 73, Rick wa6nhc -----Original Message----- From: Kent Tiburski Thanks Bob! I actually did that and added those snap-on ferrite cores. I cleaned up things a lot! I'm starting to think that there may be other things going on. I took the advice of others that replied. Things such as using a dummy load, no problems. I put the amp in STBY and when running 100 watts thru it the VSWR was less than 1.5 to 1 and forward power was 100 watts (indicated on the amp). I put the dummy load on the other end of my run of coax and it was fine. Even with the extra balun and ferrite cores me thinks that it's either the length of the coax or I have the antennas too close to the shack. My 6 meter yagi is laterally about 30 feet from the rig/amp and the R8 about 36 feet. Anyone else have any ideas? Thanks! 73, Kent, K6FQ ______________________________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:Elecraft@mailman.qth.net This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
