On Sun, 15 May 2005 08:43:04 -0400, Sandlapper wrote:
I recently acquired one of these antennas that has been in the air for
several years. I suspect that it was sold as an A3, then "upgraded" to A3S
status by using SS hardware. the antenna was disassembled when I bought it.
There are 3 trap designations according to the manual: TA, TB, TC. The TA's
and the TC's are identical in appearance and there are no stamps or markings
to distinguish one from the other. Is there an easy way to identify which
is which? Cushcraft doesn't supply any values.
Thanks, Butch K4NAU.

You're in luck. I _just_ yesterday dropped my antennas and the tower
in preparation for a move to a new QTH. Let me run out to the patio
and check... .. . .. . . ... .. .. .. ..... . . . . . .

Assuming the left side of the display is the boom, we view one half of
each element sticking out to the right:

|======[ - TA ]===[unmarked]========= Director
|
|
|=======[ - TA ]===[ - TC ]============ Driven
|
|
|========[ - TA ]===[ - TC ]============= Reflector


On _my_ A3S the "TA" and "TC" markings are found on applied labels
that include the orientation arrows that I depicted above.
The 2 unmarked traps have _no_ detectable markings. By elimination,
these must be the "TB" traps - i suppose.
FWIW, the outside ends of the "unmarked" and "TC" traps have tubing
that 'necks down' to receive the smaller O.D. tubing out to the ends
of the element. So, the orientation of the "unmarked" trap should
be casual to the most obvious observer. :-)

HTH
Jonesy
--
| Marvin L Jones | jonz | W3DHJ | linux
| Gunnison, Colorado | @ | Jonesy | OS/2 __
| 7,703' -- 2,345m | config.com | DM68mn SK