Wow, I guess I just live and learn...
I few weeks, perhaps months now I suppose, my 6m loop stopped being resonant on 50.125. Really weird - I mean, it looked fine and was hanging right where it had been for a while and I hadn't done ANYTHING with it except use it. I really didn't understand what was going on.
So, last weekend I dropped the antenna and tried to re-adjust it so that it would be resonant (again!) on 50.125 +/-. It was really strange; I'd tune/adjust it, raise it up 20' or so, think that I'd just about got it and then it would change on me. It was really frustrating. So, I adjusted it "one last time" and hauled it up into the air.
Wouldn't you know; it wouldn't tune on my 9100! My 7600 would tune it up, but that didn't make a whole lot of sense to me. I used my antenna analyzer and it was around 3:1 match!!! WHAT??!!?? ARGHH!!
(In case you haven't followed my rants recently, I've have a bad run of radio luck...)
Time passes... And now it's this afternoon - beautiful day and I have about an hour to kill until my next activity kicks up; sounds like a good time to take a look at the 6m loop problem. So, I dropped the antenna again, got out the M2 6m loop PDF and adjusted all the parts to the specs in the PDF. HOWEVER, when I was banging on the metal trying to shift parts around, ants started crawling out of the aluminum tubing! A LOT of ANTS - I mean, tons!!! How strange? Anyway, I kept on making noise and gave them a little while to clear out.
I went back later and it seemed like they'd moved on - I guess most of them did anyway. So I hauled the antenna back up in the air and guess what - 1.2:1 match :)
My "moral of the story is this", there is always a reason - it just might be stranger than what you think it is!
73 de KJ4WLH
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