On Fri, 5 Oct 2007 19:47:24 -0700, "Joaquin Tall"
wrote:

Hello All,

Brisk winds blew through our area yesterday and, unfortunately, my 200'
G5RV's feedline touched ground overnight.

Sorry to hear that.

This morning I noticed that there were chew marks over 40' of the
ladderline; most went deep enough to expose the copper wire underneath. We
live in the country...

Life in the city is not all its cracked up to be either.

I called the manufacturer; they told me that "splicing/soldering" in a 40'
length of 300 ohm line to replace the chewed up line would upset the SWR and
almost make the antenna useless.

It's remarkable how there's a new flavor of baloney posted here at
least once a week.

It's the solder joints [no matter how
small] that would mess things up.

Sounds like a McHales Navy re-run from that crew you called.

I used some silicone calk to cover the bite marks; ever try to smooth out
calk on twinlead!?

Real easy if you use a wet rag or just wet hands. Wet is the keyword
and it is water cured.

Do I need to remove/replace the feedpoint and the 40' of the twinlead, in
other words make most of the antenna over again?

You don't even need to silicone calk it. Insulation is not all its
cracked up to be either (the copper is already insulating itself as we
pass these messages back and forth).

Any options to make the antenna whole again, the above draconian measure
notwithstanding?

Lift it back up in the air and fire up the rig. After all, you didn't
notice you had a "problem" until you LOOKED at it, did you?

Now, the chances are you are going to be hypersensitive about any
changes you make, or you don't make. It will SEEM that the antenna is
not operating as it had before. Blame it on the weather, it wasn't
going operate the same as it had before anyway - even if it never fell
- even if the bugs hadn't chewed it.

73's
Richard Clark, KB7QHC