On Wed, 19 Sep 2012 10:12:09 -0400, Ralph Mowery wrote:
Not that it maters but another ham and myself have been licensed for 40
years.

We ran across somethng the other day that we had not seen before. We live
about 10 to 15 air miles apart. I have a vertical dipole at 35 feet on a
tower. He has 2 differant FM rigs and vertical dipole wire antenas in his
attic about 50 feet apart. I can work him direct on 6 meters with him
mobile in his drive way. A couple of days ago we could work with his attic
antenna.
He built another antenna , so he has two antennas and rigs. A Midland and
GE comercial unit that puts out 40 watts each. I check the sensitivity on a
HP 8924C and they both seemed to be as good as a Midland I was using.

It rained and now he can not hear me, but I can hear him fine on either rig
and antenna of his. I switched to an Icom 706 at 100 watts out and and
checked the reflected power is about 2 watts. At this time, he could tell
when I was transmitting ,but not understand me. We were co-ordinating over
2 meters.

I also switched to an OCD antenna at 50 feet and could hear him. The
internal tuner on a 746 pro tuned it,but he could not hear me on that either
and he was about S-5 on the meter.

Do you think we have discovered one way shingles ???

More likely you've discovered a nearby lightning strike
and now his RCVR front end is blown.