Here's a head scratcher that I came across last night that I just haven't been able to reason through. :blink: I know there must be a simple explanation, but I'm not seeing it.
Last night I was moving around some of the cables on the station and when I was finished, I decided to do a cursory check to make sure I put it back together right. The check was simply flip the switch to the dummy load and then to each both HF antennas to make sure all was normal on the SWR meter.
Well, the antennas were the same as they always are, but when I went to the dummy load I measured about a 1.3 SWR. Not a big deal, but odd for a dummy load so I proceeded to find out why. I messed around for a while (tried a different dummy load), bypassed various pieces of equipment and finally narrowed down the offending piece of coax that was between the coax switch and the dummy load. Sure enough, when I put this 6' jumper of RG/8 on the analyzer and a different dummy load by itself, it got the same reading. I used a multimeter to check for shorts (would expect a much higher SWR if that was the case) and found none. I touched up all of the solder points on the connectors on each end which did nothing. I inspected for a place whe coax could be smashed or kinked and didn't come up with anything.
So the question is, what on earth would cause a coax jumper that was perfectly fine one minute to suddenly show an increased (although minor) SWR reading into a dummy load? I don't get it
Last night I was moving around some of the cables on the station and when I was finished, I decided to do a cursory check to make sure I put it back together right. The check was simply flip the switch to the dummy load and then to each both HF antennas to make sure all was normal on the SWR meter.
Well, the antennas were the same as they always are, but when I went to the dummy load I measured about a 1.3 SWR. Not a big deal, but odd for a dummy load so I proceeded to find out why. I messed around for a while (tried a different dummy load), bypassed various pieces of equipment and finally narrowed down the offending piece of coax that was between the coax switch and the dummy load. Sure enough, when I put this 6' jumper of RG/8 on the analyzer and a different dummy load by itself, it got the same reading. I used a multimeter to check for shorts (would expect a much higher SWR if that was the case) and found none. I touched up all of the solder points on the connectors on each end which did nothing. I inspected for a place whe coax could be smashed or kinked and didn't come up with anything.
So the question is, what on earth would cause a coax jumper that was perfectly fine one minute to suddenly show an increased (although minor) SWR reading into a dummy load? I don't get it