this post was submitted on 22 Mar 2026
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Antenna woes (lemmy.radio)
submitted 1 week ago by early_riser@lemmy.radio to c/amateur_radio@lemmy.radio
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I'm mostly thinking out loud here.

I have an Icom 9700 connected to a set of egg beater antennas. The other day I noticed high SWR on 70 cm, so I broke out the dummy load and tested the patch cable running from the radio to the wall panel (along with the barrel connector on the wall panel). SWR was fine there. Then I took the outdoor feedline off the antenna and tested it there. Everything seems fine there too. Plugged it back into the antenna and the high SWR returned.

Seems the antenna is the problem, but I'm not sure how to fix it. The other egg beater is doing fine.

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[–] early_riser@lemmy.radio 1 points 1 day ago

The ends of the antenna that connect to the terminals were rusted. I sanded them down with a dremel and that seems to have fixed the issue

[–] dgriffith@aussie.zone 3 points 6 days ago

Well, antennas are pretty simple physical devices so a close visual inspection is the next step, looking for damage to insulators and spacers, etc

Eggbeater antennas also usually have a bit of phasing coax that by necessity sits out in the weather between the connections to the two elements, probably best to eyeball that too.

[–] linuxguy@piefed.ca 4 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Plug the antenna into a tinyvna?

[–] early_riser@lemmy.radio 3 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

If I had one!

[–] LH0ezVT@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 week ago

I can recommend it, if you have some interest in tinkering. Cool little tool that ignited my interest in antenna building. Maybe ask around in some local ham group?

[–] TheOSINTguy@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 week ago

Some antenna's you can trim if they are reading a high SWR. Another thing thing I do with my mobile antenna is I check for any rust after the winter months because the salt can really wear your antenna out