Jeff Shirilla wrote:
heya folks....

got a general questions about antennas. please excuse my ignorance but i am
new to this hobby. when we were kids my dad had a small base station set up
to an antron 100 antenna and i remember being able to talk to school friends
whose fathers had base stations miles and miles across town. i recently
inherited this exact same antenna, set it up, and it does not seem to be
able to pull in anything over about a mile. can an antenna go "out of tune"
so to speak? i hooked up my cheapo radio shack whip to the same rig and it
worked wayyyyy better. any advice? thanks in advance!

Sure it can be out of tune. If it is the same antenna it now has a few
more years of corrosion on it, so start by taking it down, disassembling
it, and clean every electrical connection. Check the coax you used for a
shorted connector and for continuity or lack of continuity between the
center conductor and the shield. Borrow an swr meter, and make any
adjustments necessary to flatten the reflected power around channel 20.
It should work.