MagicalArmchair
Well-known member
I popped to the boat for the afternoon today to try and get to the bottom of this fault. I took down the headlining at the base of the mast, and there was the union where the coax from the aerial, met the coax inside the boat, that eventually ends up on our AIS 700. It appears that the deck gland that these cables enter through has been leaking for quite some time!!
The union, judging by the corrosion, had been standing in water. Additionally, the PL259 on the Aerial (mast) end, had never been soldered, and it just fell apart in my hands once I had unscrewed the union. This connection would never have been great from when the boat was first made, its frankly a wonder it was working at all.
Where the water was getting in:
I tried cleaning up the union, and reattaching the PL259 to the aerial coax, however, the coax just disintergrated in my hand. I cut back a few inches, and found some metal that didn't just turn to dust, however, it was still quite corroded. On reassembly, my VSWR was better, hovering around 4:1 to 5:1, however, as soon as it went to say 5.1:1 (so anything over 5), the alarm would sound.
My battle plan is this:
The union, judging by the corrosion, had been standing in water. Additionally, the PL259 on the Aerial (mast) end, had never been soldered, and it just fell apart in my hands once I had unscrewed the union. This connection would never have been great from when the boat was first made, its frankly a wonder it was working at all.
Where the water was getting in:
I tried cleaning up the union, and reattaching the PL259 to the aerial coax, however, the coax just disintergrated in my hand. I cut back a few inches, and found some metal that didn't just turn to dust, however, it was still quite corroded. On reassembly, my VSWR was better, hovering around 4:1 to 5:1, however, as soon as it went to say 5.1:1 (so anything over 5), the alarm would sound.
My battle plan is this:
- Cut back another couple of inches of coax to try and find some uncorroded core (note: I am running of of cable length!!)
- Get a new crimp on PL259 (working up there its hard to solder the connector on).
- Buy a new PL259 union. The old one, whilst I cleaned it up, was still pretty bad.