Topic: antenna goo

[avogodro]

I have recently attempted to setup a used boltek pci. I noticed the antenna has goo inside it.... is this normal or is my antenna malfunctioning? See attached

Thanks
Nick

[George Richardson]

Been a long time but I think its normal. Perhaps heat dissipation.

[DanS]

You mentioned 'used'. Is it possible the previous owner applied some type of anti-corrosion gel to protect the contacts from oxidizing?

[Dr Obbins]

Looks like dielectric grease to me. It is put on electrical connections to reduce corrosion and provide better connectivity.

[miraculon]

Davis pre-loads their RJ11 connectors on their SIM modules with some kind of grease. (even though they use gold contacts).

Corrosion is insidious stuff. I have had contact issues where I cannot see anything with the naked eye, yet a blast of QD contact cleaner and presto, back in business. I have been using the dielectric grease in the photo after cleaning. Best to have the dielectric grease before you have problems.

Greg H.

[avogodro]

I figured it was something like that. I got a little worried because the antenna gets pretty warm when it's in use. I was also worried since I got it used.  It seems to work okay even though the antenna is indoors presently.  I am still learning how to set this up.

Thanks for all of the reply!
Lover this forum.
Nick.

[DaleReid]

Nick,

I had one of the early models of Boltek years ago.

I found the same thing, that the antenna for some reason (active components?) gets quite warm when in operation, leading me to wonder just how much current goes up and down the CAT 5 cable.

Anyway, one day I began to have problems with seeing storms, so I started troubleshooting.  Despite having the antenna in a plastic 10' downspout with a sealed top on it, the bottom where the cable came out was open and the humidity had been enough at times to cause the dreaded green creep to get all over the RJ11, despite the contacts being gold.

Any time you have current of any degree and moisture, there is the chance for problems.

With an hour's worth of time and some little dental tooth cleaning tools that my friendly hygenist had given me, it was nearly all gone and no vital contacts had been bent.  I asked a couple local hams with eons of experience about it and they said to give it a little squirt with contact cleaner which would leave no conductive residue, and then gently blow dry with air from a can or compressor, then a SMALL amount of this dielectric grease.

I was aghast at putting that stuff in there for fear that if it were to get some conductivity that it, being close to silicone grease used in chem labs and such, that I'd never be able to remove it.  However I do remember years ago installing hi band two way radio antennas on many many trucks, that we had a little packet from Antenna Specialists that was to be squeezed onto the contact from mount to screw on antenna coil and that always worked, so I did apply a teensy weensy bit with a toothpick and since then there has been good connection and last time I took the plug/socket apart, there was zero corrosion or green stuff and the gold contacts looked perfect.

Use it sparingly, but cover the areas needed.  I see the folks at the semi maintenance shop using it on many of the 12v connections for lights, signals, indicators, etc.  They say that with the amount of road salt and grime that those rigs see in a year that many of the connections look pretty bad in a short while, and where there are contact connections this stuff saves many hours of tracking down troubles.

Have fun.

Do you have your Boltek display on the web somewhere to show storms?  Something we can click into to watch?

Thanks Dale

[avogodro]

This Is an older antenna.  In fact i originally bought a ISA setup but I was unable to get any computer that i had with an ISA port to boot properly.  The antenna came with the ISA board.  I then procured a PCI board from ebay and I am using the antenna from the ISA board on the PCI board.  I figured they would be compatible.  I get decent storm reporting from the antenna that I am using now.  I havent permanently mounted it anywhere outdoors yet as I havent found a suitable way to get the cable out of the house without going through a window or door. 

As for having it on the internet, i do not yet.  I am trying to get a webserver up and running on a virtual machine.  My main problem with this is that the nexstrom software cannot log into my ftp program that i have running because it doesnt do ssl connections.  So I am trying to figure out a linux ftp program to install to my virtual ubuntu server.  I admit i havent had a whole bunch of time to research this.  I know i tried to figure it out for a week and got busy with another project and a full time job that demanded more attention.  So i am trying to get back to this project and make it visable to all via the internet.

any suggestions for that workaround would be appreciated.

Nick
KK4ANB

[DaleReid]

Thanks for the info, I see where you are with this.

I, too, had an ISA board and did the update.  The antennae are the same, from what I can tell.  I just got the board shipped to me from Boltek, did NOT get a new antenna.  And their web site shows only one replacement antenna with no selection for ISA vs. PCI, so either they are the same, or they don't think anyone has an ISA card anymore.  My experience hints that the antenna is the same.

Good luck getting all to work together and something up on the web.  I wanted to get that info available, and ended up (when I was using Boltek more) just having Boltek generage a .jpg image and then I sent that to WxDisplay generated web page.  Clumsy, but worked for me.

I'm still in awe of the members on this forum that whip up these scripts and functions.  I sense they do this at work or have a third brain that understands.  If it isn't FORTRAN or BASIC, I'm a bit of a dunce.

Keep us posted. Dale