It's much more difficult to make a reliable "dry circuit" contact (low
voltage and current) than one handling substantial power. The reason is
that any oxidation or other crud will ruin a dry circuit contact, but
higher voltage and current will burn through the crud to make good
contact. So it's no surprise that your situation improves when you hold
the key down. I had some open frame relays in a plastic box outside
doing some antenna switching which would crud up after a while. But all
it took was a "dit" from the transmitter, and they'd behave for a while.
You apparently have a situation where the contacts are re-oxidizing
rapidly (as aluminum, for example, will do), or where some contaminant
runs down over the contacts to recontaminate them after the transmitter
key-down period. Track down the signal path, and put something like
DeOxIt on any contacts. The oil will prevent re-oxidation, and normal
wiping action should push the oil out of the way in the contact area to
allow good contact. I wouldn't use a grease like NoAlOx unless you have
a pretty fair amount of contact pressure. I've found that WD-40 works
quite well, too. You might find it handy to at least find the problem area.

Roy Lewallen, W7EL

R.Scott wrote:
I will try to describe it best I can.

Its something loose but cant tell from Visual

10 meters when I rotate the antenna will go Numb as the antenna moves
and wiggles. It will settle down when it stops sometimes. but If i
tx and drop it will come back to hearing. Anytime the wind blows does
the same thing.

NOW here is the weird part, If I rotate while KEY DOWN ... SWR stays
flat .... but I unkey and it goes numb while moving.

Weirdest thing Ive seen. Driving me nuts too.

Im thinking trap but if it was loose it would stay that way i would
think



Help, going crazy.

Scotty W7PSK