Well, the AC is out here due to lightning strike last weekend so I figured if I was gonna sweat I may as well work on these antennas. I took some before an after pictures and got a few surprises. One of them being these are KLM antennas, can't imagine the cost of them new!
The boxes that I thought were pre-amps are actually polarity switching boxes and they have their own control cables (2 wire).
They look like Cushcraft but it was the driven elements on both beams that made me curious:
When I turned the antenna over on the saw horse I found this on what I incorrectly thought was a pre-amp:
This appears to be a pre-amp on the 432 beam but it also a polarity switch. Believe it or not both of these polarity switches used RCA plugs at the antenna. The 432 switch had this box but the 2M was just the open circuit board pictured above.
The switch on the 2M beam:
After working in the sun for an hour I was able to get the box open without break anything:
This is the underside to the lid for the box, looks like some cleaning is going to be needed:
Judging by the damage to these antennas, especially the large driven elements, I figure the tower must have went over that they were mounted on. I also bought some 6 meter antennas and the one (4 ele quad) with the 3" boom is actually bent at one end. Stands to reason it took some force to do that.
Oh, before I forget, I found a great new manual download page. Free too! New to me any way, mostly older stuff but still good deal:
The Boat Anchor Manual Archive
http://bama.edebris.com/manuals/
The boxes that I thought were pre-amps are actually polarity switching boxes and they have their own control cables (2 wire).
They look like Cushcraft but it was the driven elements on both beams that made me curious:
When I turned the antenna over on the saw horse I found this on what I incorrectly thought was a pre-amp:
This appears to be a pre-amp on the 432 beam but it also a polarity switch. Believe it or not both of these polarity switches used RCA plugs at the antenna. The 432 switch had this box but the 2M was just the open circuit board pictured above.
The switch on the 2M beam:
After working in the sun for an hour I was able to get the box open without break anything:
This is the underside to the lid for the box, looks like some cleaning is going to be needed:
Judging by the damage to these antennas, especially the large driven elements, I figure the tower must have went over that they were mounted on. I also bought some 6 meter antennas and the one (4 ele quad) with the 3" boom is actually bent at one end. Stands to reason it took some force to do that.
Oh, before I forget, I found a great new manual download page. Free too! New to me any way, mostly older stuff but still good deal:
The Boat Anchor Manual Archive
http://bama.edebris.com/manuals/
