I've had an A99 up on my mini-tower for about 8 years. Survived a hurricane and some pretty nasty blizzards. The fiberglass is cracking and it looks a bit beat up.....I do want to upgrade but my money is going to another hobby right now, is this thing toast? The receive is normal but I don't seem to be able to get out like before, maybe just the conditions or maybe it's my worn out antenna???
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Life expectancy of an A99?
- Thread starter Bundy
- Start date
RatsoW8
Supporting Member, W9WDX ARC Member - WD8T
There really isn't much to those antennas so just some cracked fiberglass doesn't necessarily mean theres anything wrong with the antenna. If the cracks are allowing water inside then it's a problem. If the SWR is showing ok I'd keep using it. If you want to be sure then take it down and inspect it. If it were mine and it inspects ok I'd give it a coat of plasti-dip just to see how that stuff does on antennas. Otherwise if your just itching for a new antenna... go for it!!!
Overhaul it.
This will require disassembling the sections, putting a coat of fiberglass resin on, and cleaning the contacts and screw connections.
Check your coax too, because it may be of dubious qualaity and may no longer behave as it was designed to do. Time and weather both affects coax - too . . .
This will require disassembling the sections, putting a coat of fiberglass resin on, and cleaning the contacts and screw connections.
Check your coax too, because it may be of dubious qualaity and may no longer behave as it was designed to do. Time and weather both affects coax - too . . .
Especially if the coax came from radio shack. On some of the boxes it actually says that it is not approved for outdoor use.
Robb is right. The A99's feed point location can allow water into the coax even thought there is a drain hole in the base mount area near the feed point. A number of CB vertical antennas have a feed point straight in line with the antenna where water is pretty much bound to get in/on to the wire and/or the SO259...which is not water tight.
My Starduster's are bad in this regard too. CB connectors are nowhere near water tight.
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Make sure you wear gloves when working the antenna. Use a flexible coating on the surface. Fiberglass resin is brittle and will crack.
Rich
2 hours,,,,,, a boy here in town put one up on 2 10 foot pieces of tv tubing got it up just before summer storm come ,,,,, lightening hit it shredded it into about a million pieces burnt the coax up and got his uniden washington,,, he brought radio to me to see if i could fix it,,, no way the circuit board was toasted beyond fixing...
Good ones too. I am sure you can tell I made that mistake, of which will only be once.
I've got a pair of A99s.
I've quadrupled the life of every fiberglass antenna by covering it completely - from top to bottom - in plastic, split loom (plastic tubing for automotive electrical wiring). The loom takes the beating from UV rays instead of your fiberglass antenna.
I did this with my 30+ year old, Shakespeare made, Radio Shack 1/2 fiberglass "Cross Bow" base antenna. It is still up and running with a 1.02 SWR on channel 1 up to 1.3 on channel 40. My A99s got the same treatment. They are about 10 years old and they are doing fine.
I've quadrupled the life of every fiberglass antenna by covering it completely - from top to bottom - in plastic, split loom (plastic tubing for automotive electrical wiring). The loom takes the beating from UV rays instead of your fiberglass antenna.
I did this with my 30+ year old, Shakespeare made, Radio Shack 1/2 fiberglass "Cross Bow" base antenna. It is still up and running with a 1.02 SWR on channel 1 up to 1.3 on channel 40. My A99s got the same treatment. They are about 10 years old and they are doing fine.
RatsoW8
Supporting Member, W9WDX ARC Member - WD8T
It does. They're actually painting cars with it now. It's Plasti-dip. There are a bunch of youtube videos showing it in action.
Plastidip is popular with the teenagers around here and it looks good until it starts peeling off. Don't use it on antennas because it is definitely not permanent.
Mine didn't survive the UPS ride from Amazon, lol. I am just getting back into having a cb base and mobiles again after years away, ordered up an Antron 99 from Amazon and it arrived 2 days later in the factory carton, no other padding. Opened it and the base section looked like the UPS truck had ran over it. Looked like a cartoon exploded cigar. Boxed it up, returned it, waiting to see what the next one looks like.