Fixing mobile problems

I was having problems with high SWR (standing wave ratio) on my ATAS 120 mobile antenna. My guess was the feedline, which was the standard tiny coax that comes with a Comet or Diamond trunk lip mount. I ordered the Coment 3D4M coax cable assemly, which has 13 feet of RG58 coax. All of a sudden my SWR on the ATAS goes down to 1:1 on 40 meters and some random RF problems are solved.

Lesson -- use real coax on HF mobile, not the miniature type that's designed to go through a gap easily, but may be so-so on transmitting and sheilding RF.

Comments

Miguel Lobos said…
Good stuff! I put a Little Tarheel II on my commuter-mobile (2005 Honda Civic coupe), using the Diamond K400-3/8C mount with the standard coax. So far, no real problems, but I'm going to keep an eye on things... I'll have to get some pictures and put them up when I get back to VA - working remote in Knoxville, TN this week...
July 1, 2009 at 9:32 AM
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