Last year I bought some aluminum wire in coils like you describe. I
think it was a company
in Ohio and may very well have been Malinco. Anyway, they had a 50 lb
minimum and charged
something like $3 and change per pound. This is way cheaper than
McMaster. I wholeheartedly
agree that alloy 1100 is the hot setup. BTW, did you know it also is
the most corrosion resistant?
The stuff I got was annealed to practically wet noodle consistency :-).
Wonderful to work with.
Rick N6RK
K1TTT wrote:
> I just found the newest bestest radial material I have ever used! And over
> the years I have used a lot of them. It ain't cheap, but at this point in
> the 80m 4-square project that doesn't much matter any more.
>
> It is Alloy 1100 Aluminum Wire .125" Diameter(just under 8ga), 12-lb Coil,
> 792' Coil, McMaster-Carr part number 8866k15. They sell it for $150 and its
> enough for 12 radials for 80m. it comes with a tag from www.malinco.com,
> they don't seem to have an on-line order system so probably only deal in big
> quantities.
>
> If you want something a bit cheaper they have 2016' coils of .080 (about
> 12ga) for $146.
>
> This stuff comes in a coil, which kind of worried me a bit until I cut off
> the tie wraps and it just sat there... no spring to it at all. It is easy
> to cut with small wire cutters, and easy to hand wrap around bolts and
> itself to make eyes. It can also be uncoiled and doesn't get kinked, you
> don't have to roll it out like Copperweld or other stiffer wires. I found
> it easiest to just stick the coil over one arm and uncoil it as I walked
> from vertical to vertical to connect them up.
>
> Btw, even with just the radials connected around the square this new
> 4-square is MUCH better than the old hanging around a tower. I can take an
> s9+ ve3 and make them disappear off the back.
>
> David Robbins K1TTT
> e-mail: mailto:k1ttt@arrl.net
> web: http://www.k1ttt.net
> AR-Cluster node: 145.69MHz or telnet://dxc.k1ttt.net
>
>
>
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