On older models of Carolina Windoms, the line isolator was simply a
piece of RG-8x coax, with one end wrapped around a ferrite rod (and
housed inside a piece of PVC).

If you do away with the line isolator and hook your coax directly to
the balun (I think they use a 4:1), you should receive signals just
like any other dipole. If you do not, I'd say the balun is bad. If
you do, then the line isolator is bad.

If this is a new antenna from Radio Works, they will probably make it
good. If it's a used antenna you can try to fix it yourself. Take a
hacksaw to the PVC and get it apart. You may find a broken or
unsoldered wire. You will need some new PVC caps, pipe, glue and such
to make new housings, but that shouldn't be difficult.

Kingfish


On Sun, 27 May 2007 13:40:06 +0100, "Andre C" wrote:

I am very new at ham radio and find myself confused over an installation of a Carolina windom 80 special.

I attatched a 20m run of coax to the line isolator. When I switch on the rig I get nothing, even on strong BC stations.
I assumed it was a coax prob and striped my plugs down etc. I then
discovered that if the shielding was not touching the socket on the
rig I got a very good signal. So I assumed there was a short in the
coax. I checked the plugs and they seem fine but I note that even when
I have just the co-ax plugged in (ie no windom) I get a good signal
unless the shielding is connected. (I guess that would make sense
though I thought the shielding stopped the centre core picking up a
signal.

So where is my problem? Is it the antenna? Is it the ine isolator. (There is no indicator which way round it goes so
I presume it is universal.) I have no tset equipment as yet so an
easy solution would be valuable.