VHF/UHF Switch Problem.

I had a rare listen to 2m and 70cm FM last evening.  Here in North Wales, there is essentially zero 2m activity, even on repeaters, and those few who remain operational are generally not worth having a QSO with.

I noticed that, as I turned the antenna switch to its end-stop, the signal on 2m suddenly increased - by about 4 'S' points.  How strange!

On opening the VHF/UHF switch, I was firstly surprised to see how little I had received for the quite large amount of money paid for it! 

As you can see, it's just a shim of brass moving between the outputs!

How much did I pay for this?

Clearly, there's not an awful lot that can go wrong with such a simple switch.  Because more pressure on the switch brought about the improved signal, I thought this was probably corrosion on the brass metal knife.

After applying some metal polish with a ear-cleaning stick, it was obvious that there was quite a lot of surface corrosion to be cleaned away.  If you do this cleaning, please make sure you remove all traces of the metal polish, because if you don't, when it dries, it forms a non-conductive powder.

Quite a lot of surface corrosion on that kife switch!

After this simple treatment, the fluctuating signal problem had disappeared and full strength reception was restored!