Notes on CL-33 Tribander

November 2000

Antenna was on PJ9JT tower at the time of purchase. Cleaned up by K4LT and placed in service.

July 2001

Removed from aluminum tower and rehabilitated by N8NR and N8BJQ -- lubricated, waterproofed, tested. Installed at top of 80 foot US/JA tower.

September 2005

Routine checks showed high SWR on 15 meters and intermittently high SWR on 20 and 10. It was about 3.5:1 on 15 in the SSB band.

CQWW SSB 2005

Worked Ok during the contest, but it did not seem that the antenna had much pattern and it was generating considerable interstation interference.

3 November 2005

Took the connector off at the feed point to run the MFJ meter. The Type N male and female pins were black inside the female Type N on the antenna and they disentegrated when the connectors were pulled apart. This explained the RFI in the CQWW SSB contest. Took the driven element down with help from Cindy. On 4 November removed the connector on the antenna body and replaced it with a female SO-239. This was tricky, as the connector connects to two roughly 10 foot long heavily insulated black wires that sit inside the DE, connected to nothing. Taped the cut far ends of these wires, fashioned a connecting method for the new connector, put it on the DE insulator body, and waterproofed it.

Put the DE about 8 feet up on the Europe tower and ran MFJ curves. Resonances were shallow and not in the bands. Replaced both DE traps with the new ones from WB9Z, then flipped each to try all possible directions of "in" and "out" until getting a workable combination. SWR on 20 and 15 is not perfect, with dipe in the phone band. On 10, the dip is at about 27.6 MHz., but is acceptable from the end of a long piece of feedline. Connected RG-8X from the shack and ran 100 watts to the antenna all seems OK except for slightly high SWR on 10.

Measured physical dimensions and compared with the antenna manual. Spacing does not agree with the manual: from center to inner tip of trap is 106 inches against manual number of 101.5 inches. I took out 5 inches in both sides as an experiment and dips were way too high in the band. Put back to original positions, as we know these work. I'm not certain that the manual we're looking at ("CL-33-M") is the right model.