Solarcon Dial-A-Match swr problems?

[Tim Tom]

Afternoon ladies and gents.

Bought a Solarcon Dial-A-Match last week, little 2ft antenna, just as a punt as they're cheep. Got round to fitting it and I can't get it to swr down to be of use on uk 40. I've tried playing around with the rings, adjusting the actual whip itself up and down, tested my mount to see if that was playing up, nope all my other antennas are fine.

The best I can swr it down to is channel 1 on uk40 and that 2.5, every other channel is 5+. That's with the antenna at its shortest I can get it to. A lad I work with has suggested trimming the whip it's self down a mil or 2 and see what happens but I'm not 100% sure on doing that. Just wondering if anyone else has had similar experiences and am I missing somthing completely?

Cheers

Tim

[Alan Pilot]

I would try a bit of a trim 2mm and see if it is any better.
Not a lot to lose.

[The Collector]

At least if you only cut a couple of mill' off at a time, you can simply raise the whip a couple of mill' and tighten it to make up for it if the swr starts to rise.

From memory, the smaller 2ft dial-a-match never seemed to swr in well, whereas the 4ft version was a lot easier to get lower. I think I had a Cherokee version, as well as "The Bandit" version with built-in mag-mount.

If it's one of the newer Solarcon things or similar, then it could simply be worse than the originals were.

You could try it on a mag-mount in the middle of the roof to see if it just doesn't like the position that you have it in now. Some aerials are fussy buggers

[Tim Tom]

You could try it on a mag-mount in the middle of the roof to see if it just doesn't like the position that you have it in now. Some aerials are fussy buggers

Ah that's not a bad idea. I'll give that ago, if not the snips are coming out

[Mudslinger]

I wouldn't spend too much time on it, performance wise they are pretty poor, even the biggest 48" versions.

[Tim Tom]

I wouldn't spend too much time on it, performance wise they are pretty poor, even the biggest 48" versions.

I reckon if trimming it doesn't help then that's the last I spend on it, just throw it in the bin

[Otter]

I have an old small dial-a-match, and although I can get the SWR down low on channel 20, the SWR isn't usable over the entire UK 27/81 band. The antenna has a very narrow babdwidth.

[Tim Tom]

I have an old small dial-a-match, and although I can get the SWR down low on channel 20, the SWR isn't usable over the entire UK 27/81 band. The antenna has a very narrow babdwidth.

Thanks for the heads up.

Just been out trimming it on my break at work got swr down to 1.2 on channel 1 and 3 on channel 40.

Getting there! Just a tiny bit more trimming and I reckon it might end up being usable shall see if if I have time later to trim a little bit more off, once I can an atleast get channel 40 into a use able swr I'll be happy

[Tim]

If these new ones are the same as the original ones I would say don’t waste your time on it, spend a bit more money and get something that you know will tune. Having said that, you could try it and see what SWR you get on some of the other bands.

[bigpimp347]

i melted a dial-a-match using 50w, i still have the melted coil..!!

do you have the right whip ??
they sold two lengths.
also most antennas are sold designed for mid band so 27.205 center of the band,
if you want it for channel 19 you're looking at 500khz that can be anything from a couple of mm to an inch or two..

also as above, location can help, a good center of the roof is better than a corner of a boot.

[Tim Tom]

Right so, finally got it trimmed down to a workable swr, 1.75ish on both channel 1 and Channel 40 and 1.1 on channel 20. Haven't tested it out on range etc yet.

As I said not too bothered about it as it was cheap and got it from thunderpole. If it was like a 50 quid antenna then yeah I'd be asking thunderpole what's up with it. I did end up trimming a fair amount off to make it workable but not too bothered. If I get time tomorrow I'll measure it and post a picture of what the size has gone down to, however not expecting to get more than 5 miles out of it now due to the size. Ah well all fun and games

[stanogs68]

i melted a dial-a-match using 50w, i still have the melted coil..!!

do you have the right whip ??
they sold two lengths.
also most antennas are sold designed for mid band so 27.205 center of the band,
if you want it for channel 19 you're looking at 500khz that can be anything from a couple of mm to an inch or two..

also as above, location can help, a good center of the roof is better than a corner of a boot.

lol lets have a picture of the melted coil ,class

[The Collector]

Well that swr's ideal for ch19 then and just go up to say ch21 for a chat...if you ever find anyone that local to talk to that is

[bigpimp347]

lol lets have a picture of the melted coil ,class

next time i'm in the loft i'll dig it out,
i have three dial-a-match antennas, two black one white..
the melted one was one i actually used for a day

[Tim Tom]

Well that swr's ideal for ch19 then and just go up to say ch21 for a chat...if you ever find anyone that local to talk to that is

That's all. It seems to be down here, the odd passing lorry drivers on 19 and farmers on 18 and 20