Just catching up on TT posts. 4416 to go.
Clay, here's a trick I use to make it easy to replace a broken rope.
1) Run a small rope up through the insulator and back down to ground
level again. The rope will be twice as long as the height of the insulator.
2) Tie the ends together to form an endless loop.
3) Pull the knot up to just below the insulator.
4) Tape the dipole rope to the endless loop
5) Pull on the endless loop so that the knot comes back down and heads
up the other side. This will pull your dipole rope up through the
insulator. Keep pulling until the end of the dipole rope is within
reach again.
6) Untape the dipole rope from the endless loop and attach it to your
concrete block or whatever.
7) Secure the endless loop so the bottom end doesn't get blown up into
the tree branches.
8) When the dipole rope breaks you fix it and then use the endless loop
to run it up and through the insulator - no more climbing required.
Hope this is of some use to you,
73, Jim Smith VE7FO
Clay Curtiss W7CE wrote:
>> This is exactly what your looking for!
>>
>> http://www.synthetictextilesinc.com/supportham.html
>>
>> I'm using the same thing as well with no problems...
>
> I have used 3000' of the Synthetic Textiles rope to hang antennas in trees.
> Instead of pulleys, I use ceramic electrical insulators (the kind with
> integrated lag bolt) up in the tree and then run the rope from the base of
> the tree, up through the hole in the insulator and out to the antenna
> insulator. I've been using this technique for over 20 years with good luck.
> Previously I used inexpesive 3/8" nylon rope acquired at hardware stores.
> It usually lasted about 10 years at my QTH in WA state, and I never had a
> rope break. Two years ago I switched to the Synthetic Textiles 3/16" rope
> (770 lbs break strength) and have had three ropes break. I've examined the
> ropes and the break always occurs at the rub point on the insulator (I hand
> pick these insulators to have very smooth ceramic when the rope will make
> contact). The black dacron covering wears through and once that happens the
> polyester seems to go pretty quickly. I typically apply about 50-75 lbs of
> tension on the rope. The last break was tensioned with a 50lb concrete
> weight that was sitting on the ground. When the wind blows hard, the weight
> would lift a few inches off the ground, so I'm pretty sure that the tension
> was always around 50 lbs. Based on the last two years experience, I'm going
> back to nylon and I'll just replace it periodically. It's getting expensive
> having someone climb 135' up into the tree to replace the rope.
>
> Clay W7CE
>
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