I found a great source for radial wire at home Depot where they have
100' rolls of 14-2 packaged for under $40. Two conductors are insulated
and one of course is not after the easy job of striping them across a
bench jig or simple having a second person hold a pocket knife while you
pull the conductors apart you end up with 300 feet of higher quality
ground radial material. 2 each 100 foot insulated radials due to the VF
are very close to 1/4 wave consideration and the the shorter 100 foot
bare doesn't hurt either. This of course brings up the issue of mixing
bare and insulated wire in any ground system so I use the bare conductor
for other 80 and 40 verticals. Yet the sum of the three wires is
cheaper than buying them individually it seems.
Herb Schoenbohm, KV4FZ
On 6/24/2014 2:57 PM, Jeff Woods via Topband wrote:
I've been doing the same thing with similar wire for several years. It works.
Some of my radials are even salvaged from Cat 5 cable - pretty thin, but they
do the job. I've found they are much more rugged when deployed as twisted
pairs though.
Lately, I've been supplementing the radials with rolls of 2 to 3 ft. wide by
50 ft long chicken wire. The stuff is about $5 a roll at the farm supply
store. I'll be trying it out on 80m for field day next weekend - just 6 to 8
rolls as a radial system for an HF6V multi-band vertical. It deploys easily
and rolls up quickly.
-Jeff / W0ODS
________________________________
From: rich kennedy via Topband <topband@contesting.com>
To: "topband@contesting.com" <topband@contesting.com>
Sent: Monday, June 23, 2014 11:23 AM
Subject: Topband: Deployable radials for 80/160M
Hello, I'm now able to use a couple acre parcel for a new 80/160M shorty
vertical (80'); however, I can use this land only between Nov and May.
For radials I'm intending on using a #22 stranded hookup wire, 300v and
wondering if this particular wire would be suitable for spooling out the ~90
foot radials then respooling them up several months later. Expected power =
1KW; Number of radial ~ 40. Any hints appreciated.
73, Rich, K3VAT
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