Bet I made him look...

An Ameritron AL-800 would be an excellent choice.

I'm still inclined to think you have a problem with the power supply.

Why after the antenna change, you ask? If the old antenna was a poor match, your radio could have been folding back power to protect itself, thus never reaching full output.

Now, you have a good load and the radio produces full power, stressing the power supply.

Try transmitting into a dummy load to see if the problem persists.

I have a single point ground. This ground system runs right in front of my shack. At one end of the house, 45 feet north, it connects to the house rod. There are two ground rods driven in that 45 feet. One right in front of the shack. One on the south end of the house, across 15 feet and one at the fenceline. So about 85' in a single line run with the shack in the middle and half a dozen rods. From the daisy chain of grounds, there is a 3' #4 run up to the grounding plate at the shack entrance with polyphasers for both the 2 meter and the HF coax.

From there, there is 275' of coax going down the fenceline and across to the Cushcraft R-8 on a 10' tripod. There is an 11 turn coil of coax on a 5" form 2' from the antenna base in addition to the matching box. That adds ~ 10k ohms of additional common mode choking on 15 meters, my favorite band.

Last Tuesday night, the R-8 was struck by lightning.

The matching box was completely destroyed. Blown to bits is the proper term. I never found the cover and the box is split into pieces. I have ordered a new matching box. After I get that installed, I'll assess the traps and see if they are roasted.

http://i39.tinypic.com/2zy93er.jpg

Back in the shack, the 746pro was still operational in every way, full power out, no funny stuff. I haven't checked the polyphaser, but I have a spare I'll put into service as needed. Hopefully, the coax isn't ruined, it's a long run of LMR-400.

The only other problems were induced currents. Every ethernet port that was connected to a cable of any length over 10' was dead. This has happened before on the long ethernet runs. I'm going to switch all the computers to wifi dongles rather than individual runs and eliminate all those long runs.

A couple of years back, my Diamond V-2000 took a direct hit. Shattered the fiberglass radome into a million toothpicks and killed the antenna dead. No damage to the polyphaser or the rig. The single point ground absorbed it all.

If I do anything, there's a 30' stretch that doesn't have a ground rod driven and attached and I may fix that soon. But right now, this is working good.

I have an LP-100a. It's great, but after a friend had me repair their amp, I suggested they get a watt meter for tuning.

At Orlando Hamcation, he bought a W4. I've had it in my shack since then.

After using it for a while, I bid on one and got it for myself. It's a really nice wattmeter. I'd suggest you invest in a little calibration work to get it as accurate as it can be.

Also, it's not obvious, but you can remove the sensor portion and have it a couple of feet from where you put the meter cabinet itself.

Drake W4, Drake W7 off of eBay all the time. They can be calibrated pretty easily with the Drake instructions available all over the web. Reasonably accurate.

New, I like the LP-100 http://www.telepostinc.com/lp100.html

And of course, the veteran in the crowd, a Bird with the proper slug.

It's worth it to do it right.

I have a classic Single Point Ground at the entrance to my shack.

Last Tuesday night, I suspect my Cushcraft R-8 was struck by lightning. SWR is infinite on that coax on all bands.

I haven't gotten to troubleshooting it because it's been raining every day since, but all of my radio gear survived just fine. I can only imagine that my R-8 matching box is trashed, my coax has been perforated along it's long run (tied to a long fence line pole) or the polyphaser is shorted.

I have 6 ground rods spread over about a 100' linear run and my shack is right in the middle. The tie to the house ground is 50' to one end, termination to the fence line is at the other end. There is a ground stake driven on each end, one at the base of my 2 meter push up pole and 3 in front of the shack spread out 15' and on center. Very similar to the long and narrow ground rod system you are referring to.

Of course, it's anecdotal evidence, but it did destroy the antenna system and didn't destroy the shack, so for me, it did what it was supposed to do.

Spend your time and do it right. It's much better if you keep the high energy stuff outside.

I wish it would stop raining...

SWR is not a measurement of loss. It is a measurement of how well your load accepts the power you are sending to it.

A dummy load has a very low SWR. It is all loss. But it accepts the power you send it very well and thus has a low SWR.

Read this:

http://forums.qrz.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=36468&d=1267550097

This is contrary to NEC requirements and also could lead to a way for the house wiring to provide the connection between those two grounds. This is why NEC requires that all ground systems be bonded together OUTSIDE the dwelling.

Please don't recommend this to anyone again. It's wrong and dangerous.

Linux ignores the BIOS after it bootstraps. This is why you'll generally see a /boot volume at the front of the disk that BIOS does cover. Windows requires the BIOS to handle the geometry all the time. Once booted in Linux from that tiny boot partition, you can support any partition size that the address bus can signal. Often this is much larger than the BIOS limitations.

Your $6 computer will likely run Linux much better than any version of Windows.

Run a messenger string between the two end points. Run the messenger through the balanced line and let it hang like a roller coaster or sine wave. Should be easy to collapse it to 1/3 it's normal length like this.

I'm surprised you can still walk with a chip on your shoulder that is as big as the one you carry.

These antennas do have a counterpoise built in. It is a self contained antenna that works as advertised. It has a low angle of radiation like any vertical. It requires no additional counterpoise or ground plane. Suggested mounting height is 10' minimum. Mine is at 12' on a tripod and I have it guyed with nylon paracord.

I had a 5BTV in the middle of 800' of fence where I bonded the entire length of the top stretcher pole and my R-8 ran circles around it. I took it down and sold it.


Obviously, you have never used one of these antennas.

It's not a beam, but it's an excellent self contained vertical and requires no tuner on any band it's designed for: 6, 10, 12, 15, 17, 20, 30 and 40.

Coming up on 3 years into the use of my R-8 (and I work full time+) I have 192 countries worked with 148 confirmed. It's the only antenna I have used for DX during that time. It's definitely not a dummy load.

A good friend of mine has the AV-640 and has found it to be every bit the antenna the R-8 is. I helped him assemble and erect it and they obviously copied the R-8 design. It's not quite as rugged and it costs less.

A friend had one of these (admittedly for transmit audio) and had to sell it. There was always RF in the audio. Be aware that if your antenna is near your shack, you may have problems with primary overload. It was like an RF magnet.

Did you plan on ever running an amplifier?

Well stated, Zenki. Spot on in every example.