Hi Rich here,

A pal of mine stopped by with his ATAS 120 and he was complaining
that it often stopped mid way and made a thumping noise refusing to go
up. I tried all of the usual stuff like removing the sheath and
cleaning and relubing the coil etc and it still thumped and refused to
go up.

I wondered if the clutch mechanism was giving up the ghost but upon
disassembling the unit, the true problem was revealed.. The Black
threaded ring at the base of the coil form was stripped, this ring is
what the antenna drive threads into to move the coil up and down.
Kinda cheap and cheesy if you ask me (a small, pressed in brass collar
would have been better)

Anyway, the ring is glued to the coil form and you know what that
means, the whole assembly must be replaced..$$$$

Being a ham and knowing I would lose a QSO friend for a few weeks, I
then came up with a plan.. Re-assemble the antenna innards outside of
the black sheath and align the inner unit so that the brass threaded
shaft is true and aligned with the top unit. In other words the
antenna inside should be assembled outside of the black tube and have
the threaded rod screwed into the black ring (even though its stripped
it should still thread in somewhat, just make sure its poking thru the
top of the black threaded ring and that the silver alignment shaft is
seated into the hole on the antenna top (the aluminum unit containing
the fingerstock and ball bearings for lack of a better word).

Once you have the unit set up properly and have removed all
lubricants, fire up the old propane torch and carefully (I MEAN
CAREFULLY) heat the brass rod just far enough away from the plastic
ring to cause it to re-form around the shaft. If you smell molten
plastic, its safe to assume you've heated it enough, dont over heat
anything remember the metal is a conductor and guess whats at the
bottom of the shaft.. More expensive stuff, so take your time.

Once you have heated it and it reforms and cools somewhat, twist the
brass threaded rod so it cuts new threads into the plastic ring.

Once everything functions ok, relube, retube and try it out!!

If you have any questions, email me at ss409ss at a o l . c o m

73's Richy N2ZD