touching tree

[coondog]

hey all,last fall when i replaced my snapped I-Max with a new one and all the same masts that i used before so i"m at the same height of around 100ft.i"ve noticed since then that i"m not transmitting as well as before and actually i kinda think that my receive isn"t up to par as before either.

i"ve been looking up at the top of the tree that its in and noticed that the top has surely grown taller, at first i thought i missed one mast buts its all there.i seen something i didn"t care for much,the bottom section of the I-Max is pressed up next to a tree limb that grew out.

question is would this have an effect on my ant.? and shouldn"t that chrome plate on the I-Max be higher then the tree? if it does i could muscle up 10ft extension to clear the tree. 110ft ant. setup would be little better with tree or no tree

p.s my swr still reads like 1.1 barefoot and 1.4 with Pride DX-300 on

[coondog]

here"s an update,i doubled checked and it looks like the ant.isn"t touching except i"m sure if the wind blows.i took a drive and had my wife talk on base and with the meter hooke to base it says it"s putting out a little more then 600 regular watts.i was only about 6 or so miles away and she was only hitting me with about 3 to 4 dbd"s. heck,before with just barefoot with other ant.she was hitting me with that.is something wrong with the ant. setup? thanks