In my celebratory post about finally having my radios installed in my Blazer, I mentioned that I seemed to have some antenna issues with the antennas connected to my Yaesu FT-857D. I was getting a high SWR warning on the display of the radio whether I was using the HF antenna or the dual-band antenna connected to that radio and thought briefly that the problem may lie within the radio itself.

After a bit of testing and experimenting I determined that this was not the case. The problem with the dual-band antenna went away when I tested it with the antenna for my Kenwood TM-D710. Using a multimeter, I determined that there is a short somewhere in the coax between the radio and antenna. I am guessing/hoping that this is being caused by a stray strand of the outer conductor not getting pulled back properly when I put the end on the coax. I am going to redo that end and see if that makes the problem go away.

I’m still not sure what I am going to try first with the HF antenna though.