Hello Topbanders, It is getting cold in the Northeast and as I get older, I dislike the cold even more.
In April of this year, I replaced my Cush craft D40 40 meter rotable dipole with an OptiBeam OB-4030 dipole for 30 and 40 meters right at the top of the mast. The overall length of the antenna is about ten feet longer and I am assuming that it has added some additional capacitance to my 100 foot shunt fed tower with a Cush craft X7, A3WS, 5 EL M2 6 meter yagi and the new OptiBeam dipole. My match on the tower went from 1.0 x 1. To 1.9 x 1 after I installed the new antenna. In terms of loss, this isn't a huge change but my amplifier doesn't like the change. Before I spend a lot of time running back and forth to the tower making random changes, any thoughts as to what I can do to improve the match. I'm currently using one series capacitor 1000PF for the matching network. I have attempted to adjust this capacitor but it looks like the 1.9 x 1 is the low point. Perhaps some thoughts - increase or decrease the spacing of the shunt wire? Move the connection up or down on the tower? Before I get to crazy, just wanted to look to the base of knowledge on this reflector for your input. 73 and tnx in advance. Bob K3UL _______________________________________________ UR RST IS ... ... ..9 QSB QSB - hw? BK
