Refurbished dipole
Sunday, June 26, 2016 8:26:00 PM
After 16 or so years of almost continuous duty the Diamond W-721 trap dipole has been overhauled. The traps had deteriorated to a point that any moisture would cause serious de-tuning and require an ATU to be switched in-line to use.
The Diamond balun was still OK as were the plastic insulators. In fact, apart from the traps the antenna was still quite OK - a very good effort considering the amount of time the antenna has been slung outside and subjected to all sorts of weather in Japan, Australia and the UK. Therefore I went with a 'kit' from Rippletech consisting of two 40 meter traps and new wire radiating elements to allow operation on 40 and 80 meters.
Thus far works a treat, tunes up nicely in the SSB portion of 80 meters and covers almost the entire 40 meters band.