Circular Polarized Antenna Continuity Question

[Pilot Scott]

I had recently purchased a Fat Shark system and after waiting 9 weeks for it to arrive and 2 nights reading and watching videos I plug it in and the magic smoke comes out. The transmitter board popped and burned as well as the low pass filter. I noted it well with text, pics and vids. Long story short I got a replacement another 5 weeks later. I had since tested the output from the battery to make sure it was correct and it was. I had installed the circular polarized antennas that I purchased the first time I plugged it in so this time I went all stock and everything powered up just as it should. This sparked (no pun intended) a question, could it have been something wrong with the expertly, hand crafted, top shelf Hobby King cloverleafs? (<---- sarcasm ) My question is this, should there be continuity between the outer ring and the inner pin on the SMA connector? On the HK clover there is but on the 5.8 stock Shark whips there is not. Would a shorted antenna cause it to fry? I'd love to use the clovers but I am a bit reluctant to install them without knowing if this could have been the cause or maybe I just had a faulty unit.

Thanks in advance

 

[Craftydan]

If you check out any of the build videos for the cloverleaf antennas, you'll notice it's continious. most "rubber ducky" whips are not -- they're just a protected wire, just about the right length to resonate.

In the case of the cloverleafs, they do have a continious path, but they'll ressonate at the designed frequency, off-loading power to the air at that freq. So if it's built right, very little of the power will make it down to the ground plane.

Of course, that assumes it's built right. If the feed line has a short in it, it could fry your VTX, but wouldn't look much different at DC (what your multimeter is reading). It might read an ohm or two lower than the good antenna, but if you didn't have a good one to compare against you wouldn't know.

If the antenna is encased, there really isn't a good way to tell without cracking it open or crossing your fingers that you don't fry the next one . . .