ham radio antenna polishing tools
- Cleaned HF Mobile Ham Radio Antenna
It’s been quite some time since I’ve done a good scrub and polish job on my mobile (car mounted) ham radio antennas. Tonight was a perfect night for such a task. Calm winds. Low humidity. Temps around 70 – 75. Good light. Clearish skies. And my lovely wife was off to an evening church function. I had finished up some other tasks after dinner and decided to tackle this annual job.
I drive quite a bit in all sorts of weather. Living in northeastern Wisconsin near the Green Bay, Wisconsin area the various antennas that I use all winter long take quite a bit of abuse. Suprisingly they do quite well after a year of travel. I commute to work every day with my car and we take several trips a year in winter to lower Michigan (Traverse City, MI area). All of this results in plenty of salt spray from snowy and icy roads in the winter. Mixed in with the road salt can be sand and bits of oil from car bottoms, etc..
In better weather it’s obvious that these antennas have suffered a bit. Now, the antenna parts are – or were – largely stainless steel. Most good antennas will be of good quality metal. While the finish of the stainless steel will lose it’s shine a bit it typically won’t rust or corrode. One of my mobile HF antennas is a Comet UHV-6. This was my first ham radio antenna and still works nicely for 2 meters and 70 centimeters ham radio frequencies. This antenna is designed with replaceable and changeable coils. I had run it with a 40 meter coil for quite some time and thus was able to quickly switch among three different bands. I had to use a duplexer to do this however. I believe one trip too many through a car parking ramp ended the useful life of the 40 meter coil. The rest of the antenna still works quite nicely however.
After the 40 meter coil was damaged I missed having a good HF antenna. My wife, Jane – KD8KRS - suggested I try 20 meters. I had heard some chatter about ham stick antennas and at a local ham fest I picked one up with a cheap mount. MAN am I glad I did! But – I digress.
The Comet antenna used a number of small sized set screws to hold the various parts of the antenna together. Before I learned that one should us a good amount of LockTite to ensure that the screws do not loosen up a couple of them dropped out. Being a new ham I wanted to get the antenna back on the air as soon as possible. So I found the small sized set screws in a local store and used the LockTite to keep them tightened down. The good news is that it was a quick solution and has worked well for years. The bad news is that I did not wait and order STAINLESS STEEL set screws. Instead I used regular black steel screws. After 1 year I found that they rusted a bit. Not enough to interfere with the electrical and radio performance of the antenna. But enough that the rust color darkly stains the rest of the metal below it. In the spring it begins to look bad.
The polishing product in the photo above, MAAS, was purchased at a local grocery store a couple of years ago. Maybe in 2009. or 2008. If the tube doesn’t dry out it likely will last a long long time. To clean the antenna metal parts I apply a dab onto a stiff bristle tooth-brush. I use the brush to apply a thick coat of the stuff to the metal surfaces of the antennas. I let it set of about five minutes. Then I use the brush to scrub it up. I believe it is slightly abrasive but it also seems to have some chemical action to dissolve the rust color and light layer of corrosion, etc.. Brushing with the brush gets the abrasive action to make a deep cleaning action and gets into the smallest spaces. I then use a dry paper towel. The metal REALLY shimes when the process is complete.
Does this all make a difference in the use of the radio? I’m not sure, although recently it does seem like I have lost a little bit of sensitivity. The photo on the left, by the way, shows the cleaned antenna metal. While it is a bit out of focus you can see the shine in the metal. I have been told that a good cleaning does make a bit of a difference but I am not sure of the full test circumstances. I do like to have the metal cleaned up and it would seem to me that a corroded switch or wire connections will just not let electricity flow as well as clean metal. We’ll have to see how it works this week!
Stay radio active!
Jon Kreski – AB9NN – Appleton, Wisconsin / Green Bay, Wisconsin area
http://www.HamRadioResources.com http://www.Twitter.com/AB9NN
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