Lowering My CP22E Antenna, Why?

Few days back I brought down my CP22E, vertical omnidirectional antenna which was on a 6m GI pipe fixed on first floor balcony. It had helped me log a good number of LEO satellite QSOs in the initial phase of my satellite operations before I homebrewed my Moxon Yagi. CP22E VHF antenna also works on UHF downlink of satellites on a third harmonic, though much less efficient than a dual band Yagi. Then why did I bring it down? The reason is simple, heavy rains have occurred in some districts in our state. As you may aware, early rains in this region is accompanied by lightning and thunder storms. So I did not want my CP22E up there on a GI mast, though I had grounded it with a 10 sq mm copper wire and a four feet long ground rod made of copper clad iron.

Today the CP22E antenna has been hosted on a shorter 3m CPVC pipe kept on the first floor balcony. This time, instead of the mast, the base of the CP22E antenna has been grounded, using the previous earth wire and rod.

An RF choke coil has been wound using surplus HLF 200 coaxial cable feedline, as advised by the manufacturer and tied to the mast.

Finally, after finishing my work, checked VSWR using my cross needle SWR meter, just to make sure that nothing has gone wrong in the process of lowering my CP22E antenna, which had been a workhorse for me. It was near 1.1:1 and I am happy about it. The antenna is able to access Calicut and Vadakara repeaters which I used to access earlier. Wynad and Kannur repeaters which used to be accessible occasionally on higher power are no longer accessible and I can’t expect it at the current height of the antenna.