On Thu,9/4/2014 8:10 AM, Carl wrote:
As far as the antenna wire it will likely be #10 or 12 solid deep well
motor wire as I have a lot of it salvaged for the asking back when
copper was still cheap.
GM Carl,
Be prepared for any copper wire to stretch under the sort of tension
that I am using and that you plan to use. One of my high dipoles is an
80/40 fan that I built about six years ago with #10 stranded THHN. Every
couple of years, I have drop it and cut a foot or two from each end.
Hoping to minimize that, I've been buying #8 solid copper from Home
Depot and stretching it in the hope of making it hard drawn. W6GJB and I
tie one end to a tree, the other to the trailer hitch on his pickup, and
slowly pull until it breaks. We get roughly 10-15% stretch. About six
months ago, I used some of it to add a reflector to one of my 80M
dipoles, and pulled the tension tight. It's sagged quite a bit. I
haven't measured it since.
73, Jim K9YC
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