hi


larger swr's bother me, if you can bare w/my ramblings i wonder f
anyone might have some useful tips...

i have a center fed dipole mounted on some pvc w/eyebolts .

previous rains/snows didn't really effect my swr's

accross 6-160m my swr's were usually 1:2 maybe 1:4 on one band.

thanks to the mast mounted sgc237 feeding my dipole via 5' of ladderline


its a short dipole 25ft hot side about 40ft rf 'gnd' side.


today i guess the snow was wet and trees, n stuff are all coated
w/thick ice, can't see my antenna, but guessing it might have the
center part frozen?? and or other parts. (not my dipole is roof mounted
and clear of trees)


on most bands starting at 18mhz and lower my swr are now anywhere from
1.5 to about 2, not terrible, but not great(good as b4)

so my question is , does anyone know of any tricks that might prevent
ice from altering the swr's, anyone try plastic coatings that repel
ice or 'hoods" guessing they'd have to be far or would just form a ice
hat?

my center is spaced just about 1 1/4" the dia of my pvc pipe and only
slightly larger than my 450 ladder,, would it make sence to make the
top of my ladder line wider spaced ie increasing the gap between the 2
dipole halves? to minimize ice?? i am guessing that creating this
larger 'gap' would increase my ohms maybe this would be bad


thanks