jj_sutton76 wrote:
hey gary...

thanks for the reply. i will indeed take it down tomorrow and clean the
electrical connections. my dad kept it pretty clean, though... it
looked really good when i got it. the coax cable is brand new so i don'
think that's the problem. i do have an swr meter, but i just can't
figure out how to use it. the instructions that came with it from radio
shack are pretty cryptic. it says for whips you need to clip off part
of it in 1/4 inch sections to tune it. how do you make adjustments to a
large 3-section antenna? thanks!

Just say 'No" to clipp;ing anything until you locate the resonant
frequency of the antenna or have a good idea where it is on the
spectrum. The higher the frequency, the shorter the antenna needs to be,
hence those stubby little things on police cars because they are
operating at very high frequency. If you are shooting for Channel 19 for
example, it is 27.185 MHz. If the antenna swr is flat at 28 MHz, then th
antenna is too short and needs to be lengthened. If the swr is flat at
27 MHz, then the antenna is too long and needs to be shortened.
Sometimes it can be hard to add stuff back on, so be careful about
cutting anything until you are certain.