Base Station Coax And Antenna Continuity

[DOG MAN]

i checked Continuity on coax before setting up my Antenna and continuity was fine but when checked when the Antenna was up continuity at the coax end is not good, tells me there is a short between the end of the coax and the top of the antenna. Can it not be checked when connected together?
Thank You

[MDYoungblood]

You are probably reading a short because most antennas have a capacitance. If you checked the coax before connecting it the the antenna and it read open, your good. What antenna are you using? Have you checked the SWR?

3's

Greg

[DOG MAN]

Thank you for your reply. Yes the coax checked out just fine, I just had a crazy idea to check it when it was connected, I should never had done that. SWR is good 1.2 well I learned something new. I’m using my older A99 Thanks

[The DB]

Many base antennas, and several mobile antennas as well, will show a dead short when it comes to a DC continuity test. This is normal.

The easy explanation is RF is not the DC that the continuity test uses, and very differently. RF is in fact AC, and when it comes to AC and matching circuits, a dead short can act like and open circuit and vice versa. In fact, there are some advantages to having a DC shorted base antennas.

An example outside of antennas would be coaxial remote power supply devices that injects DC onto a coax that is run to the antenna, and later strips it out. This just takes properly sized inductors and capacitors hooked up properly.


The DB

[DOG MAN]

Thanks for the explanation, some of this I don’t know but I keep learning. Hope to get my YQuad up soon