6m beam up and running

Took me a lot of work but finally dismantled the emergency mast, it did well in 10 years of emergency service. First it supported a alu CB GPA with 1:9 balun which was very soon replaced by a A-99 CB antenna fed by a CG3000 tuner. I used the A-99 only to support the alu radiator made with alu tape. It worked well. 2 years ago I replaced the A-99 with a I-max 2000 CB antenna as support and used coppertape instead which worked even better.





I am planning to fit the I-max on the mast again. But....well you've seen my previous post. Besides that some of the insulation breaks on the I-max. I think I have to cover it with a second or may be a third layer of tape to protect it from the weather. For now I stored it in my garage.








The supporting and insulating glassfiber militairy mast parts do need a cover as well. I knew this would happen, I guess it was just laziness, or I was out of tape 2 years ago?? What you see on the photo is happening with almost every glasfiber antenna here. Except with the W2000 antenna strange enough, probabely the tube is made from another material?







I got a lot of comments about the water in my antennatuner. I can asure you all that water via coax is not possible. I disconnected the sealed connector and it was like new, I cut it from the coax and the inside looks like new as well. I always make sure everything is sealed with vulcanizing tape very well. Both parts of the housing are screwed together with a thick rubber packing in between. What I think what is happening is that wind is pushing water into the screwholes and pushing it through the packing, I can't think of anything else. There is no hole at the bottom to let any water out. The problem with a hole is that with large wind the water is still blown inside. However, a piece small rubber tube through a hole in the bottom might do the trick? So, far I can't see much corrosion, so the water came in recently. I hope the tuner is still working......if I have some time I'll try to make a emergency setup to test it.

Finally sundaymorning, time to fit the 5 element beam in the tower......I thought. Then it was raining again. So, instead I made some DX on 6m with the vertical. Worked EA8 and A45XR for new ones. Not bad I thought. Late afternoon the sun shines again and I mounted the beam in the tower. It went well and SWR is great. Actually everything works well. Then I turned my beam west a terrible pulsating noise reached my receiver over the complete 6m band, my neighbours solarpanels I assume. As soon as the sun was set the noise was gone. Turned the beam around and made several QSO. But no USA or Canada could be heard. Saw some other dutch stations making QSOs again but they are much more south of me. Suddenly at around 20:00 UTC a few TF (Iceland) stations came in from nothing. Really strong signals, I worked 2, 5 minutes later signals were gone...that's 6m magic.