SWR + coax + antenna ground = Jebus

JeepinJarhead03 · **Posted:** Sat Mar 28, 2009 3:45 pm

alright check this out, i've been tryin to sort out a SWR issue

i'm getting continuity between the center post of my coax at the radio and the door jamb (closest part of chassis i could tag with the multimeter stick)

i get continuity when i have the wilson flex 4 built in antenna ground connected

the continuity goes away when i disconnect it

i do not find continuity between the coax screw up band and any component of the antenna, theres continuity liek there should be between shieth and mount, no continuity between antenna and mount

so everything seems normal, except for the continuity between the coax center and the ground due to the wilsons built in ground strap on the antenna

is this normal, it doesn't seem to me to be normal... Bad antenna??

edit:

the cb shop down the street told me that the antenna ground strap on the wilson flex 4 is more for use if you have it mounted on a boat or something that connecting it to a ground on a vehicle usually gives continuity on the hot post on the coax .. why it wouldn't do the same thing on a boat I don't know

going to just reattach it to the mount instead of the antenna and see what happens

this is what I get for buyin some fancy whoodoo antenna :lol:

edit2:

got the SWR right where I wanted it finally, lesson learned: don't use the attached ground straps on those antennas unless your mount doesn't have a ground at all otherwise it seems to create a ground-loop which draws the hot peg of the coax places it isn't supposed to be going

corwyyn · **Posted:** Sat Mar 28, 2009 9:33 pm

I was gonna say if you were getting continuity between the center conductor of the coax and the frame then something was seriously out of kilter - good too see you got it figured out.

JeepinJarhead03 · **Posted:** Sat Mar 28, 2009 10:14 pm

yeah! i was totally boggled when my multimeter beeped on that one, it was only through adtding up some Ohms to find the most likley path and then callin the cb shop to find out why the antennas ground strap was doin that did it get resolved

alot of engine noise is gone and it's got a more "normal" level of static with the squelch turned back where at certain setups over the past few days i was getting almost no static at all, which was very strange :lol:

i'm glad it's sorted out for sure, it was starting to aggrivate me

JeepinJarhead03 · **Posted:** Tue Mar 31, 2009 12:15 am

junk works good i tell ya what! I was talkin with some fellas from around new bern the whole way back to this side of wilson, about 60 miles total, we switched to SSB after about 40 miles when I was still hitting the closest station at about 3 pounds, some of the more distant stations were another 40 miles out past the closest, i had to trim the power on the SSB to about 60% so not to be too loud on the closest station

i'm diggin it! only thing im going to add is an inline power filter to keep the voltage at 12.5'ish since when the alt starts charging the volts do go up above 12.5 and cause some of the whine which i'm able to trim off 95% of as it is

i think i still have a filter from a radio i had years ago in the attic, i'll have to check and see if not filters at radio shack are like 10 bucks or something

SWR + coax + antenna ground = Jebus

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