Solarcon A-99 Problem (2024)

Hello good people. I just received my new Solarcon A-99 today. Happy as could be, I carefuly unpacked it, assembled it, and mounted it to a temporary mast for testing. Upon keying down for the usual swr test, my swr meter shot of the scale. Long story "short", it turns out that there is a dead short in the antenna.(continuity test proved) Just want to know if anybody else has had this problem or am I missing something about this antenna? I would like to know before I go through the rash of sending it back. Thank you.

They will read a dead DC short. This is normal. Hope you didn't try to re-tune the tuning rigs on it. You need to have it mounted on some 15+ ft of steel mast; then re-test. W/O a 'ground plane kit', they will need the mast to work as a counterpoise. Make sure that it is in the clear and not being affected by nearby objects. Check you coax too - to make sure this isn't to blame either. it could be a defective antenna; but that would be rare - IMO . . .

What kind of coax, does coax read short? the antenna will read short or very close to it.

Coax is 50 ft of rg-58. Center conductor to center conductor(50 ft) reads 2.8 ohms and center conductor to braid is infinte. Antennas center conductor to ground(male thread) is 0.3 ohms.

I had a Bandit ll that did the same. The problem was the soldered joint that connects the inner wire in one of the sections broke loose.

I'll try a good ground for antenna.Thank you so much for the feedback fellas! Peace to all of you.

Thank you for the reply. Here is the latest. I have two antennas. A 1/4 wave ground plane and my new solarcon. The 1/4 wave works very well. Low swr and when I power up my amp everything works fine. Now, when I switch over to the solarcon,same radio, same coax, same everything, the radio ( Cobra 148GTL ) by itself transmits fine. When I power up my amp, no output. When I switch back to the 1/4 wave, all works fine again ,radio and amp very low swr and full output. Keep in mind the only thing that changed was the antenna. Thank you.

How are you changing antennas? Using a switch, or swapping feed lines?
- 'Doc

id just use the 1/4 wave then.and get refund on that a-99

Just unscrewing the coax from one and screwing it in to the other. I hope I'm just overlooking something stupid/simple.

you could unscrew the top two a99 sections and measure them for dc continuity from top to bottom. if one is faulty then send that part back.

If you're just changing antennas, same feed line,etc, where/how do you have them mounted? Within easy arms reach, have to climb to them??
- 'Doc