In building the ham radio 40/80 meter inverted v antenna I ran into a slight set back. My SWR readings were very high and I first thought my antenna or cable to be bad. Fearing the worst I found the problem. A short circuit in the SO-239 connector in my MFJ-259B Antenna Analyzer. This is how I repaired it.
Video Rating: 5 / 5
In order to learn more about ham radio satellites, TCP/IP networking, stepper motor control, open-source Linux, and socket programming, I decided to build a simple prototype of a satellite Az/El tracker. Stefan HB9ZEM/KG4SDI
Video Rating: 5 / 5
I like it, very good 🙂
I do not see how octave related the stepper control of your antenna, can you explain?
@yxhankun
My Octave code takes a input 5 sat parameters of a particular pass (max elevation, azimuth at start and end and UCT time of each) and then controls the 2 motors step by step by sending simple TCP/IP string commands to the green PCB, an ethernet gateway (AVR Net-IO Kit ). To use sockets with octave, add the “sockets” package. As the antenna has not much gain, I am using for hor. movement a linear function and for vert. movement a cos function (-pi to +pi). Thanks, HB9ZEM
A helpful, quality video. Clearly visual with good explanation. I hope I don’t need to make this repair to my analyzer, but it’s good to note what can go wrong and how to easily correct it.
73’s,
Paul, WB0BBC
I ended up completely replacing the SO-239 in my MFJ-259B shortly after buying it. Started giving me erroneous readings on everything I attempted to measure so I took it apart to check the connection. Both ground and center pin looked like they made a good connection but I opted to replace anyway. Removing the circuit board from the case enough to get that SO-239 out was a treat, but an easy fix for my meter!
Nice video, btw!
Dave,
Another informative video; and should be helpful to many others. So many problems/solutions are mechanical in nature.
I have a 259B also and it is in use very often. A real time save save compared to checking with a rig and swr bridge. I also have the Dip Coils for it.
Of course, the 259 does much more than that… that is another subject.
Keep up the Great work since it is appreciated. Dust of that Guitar some time – I know you will tune it perfectly !!! LOL
-Bob KQ2Q
My Fan dipole covers 160/80/40 meters, the FT-1000MP swr meter says will read 1.2 and the Radiocraft 3000Pro will read 1.2 and the radio works fine (no power cutback) but the analyzer will read real high. Analyzer works fine on all other antennas like SteppIR and VHF UHF antennas. I think the MFJ 259B doesnt like Fan dipoles, anyone else experience this? Nice video by the way and thanks for the help. 73 Douglas