"w5kcm" wrote in message
...
Hello to the group. Recently at a local hamfest I noticed a pile of
aluminum
next to a guys truck. Asking about it, he explained it was a 5 element 6
meter
beam that he thought is an M2.He went on to tell me that he had used it
for
several years and that it had high SWR and he used it with a tuner of some
type.
Otherwise it worked very well. We worked out a deal and I am now the owner
of
this antenna. It needs some cleaning up. From some research that I found a
pdf
file from M2, it looks to be a 6M5X model. My question is why would the
SWR be
high? The T match and coax balun all look to be good. The only thing I can
see
is that the T match rods look to be long. They are 14 3/8 " each side of
the
block. This looks longer than the pictorial in the pdf file from M2. They
do not
give a length for this rod. I found some info that M2 offered an upgrade
kit for
the 6M5, could this possibly be a partially upgraded 6M5? The boom and
element
lengths all match the 6M5X. Would anyone have the T match rod length for
the
6M5X?
Thanks and 73, Randy, w5kcm

Whatever the 'trons can do to mess with you, they will do it.

I've found problems with bare metal connections that SHOULD be conducting
because they're touching but do not conduct because of tarnish, oxidation,
dirt, etc. If all else fails, loosen every connection, clean the
metal-to-metal surfaces, spritz them with a material like Crommelin Red or
Caig De-Oxit (name depends on how old you are!) and reassemble.

The tarnish lesson was relearned yesterday when I made up a 10m choke coil
from RG-58 and a pair of PL-259's. The center pins did not have DC
continuity until AFTER I gently scraped both of them with a knife-edge.

It never ends.

73,
"Sal"
(KD6VKW)