Hi Pete,
I experience the same issues here. One of the things that I do is for higher
stress ropes through trees, I switch from 3/16” to 1/4”. 3/16” abrades
relatively because only a portion of that diameter needs to abrade before the
forces on the rope in a wind will tear it apart. The 1/4” lasts exponentially
longer however since there is effectively 1/3 – 1/2 as much cordage that does
not abrade right away so it can stand up the the forces for much longer. And
where I have used 5/16”, the rope stays up forever.
The cost is geometrically higher from 3/16” < 1/4” < 5/16” but then consider
the cost of replacing the rope in the future (inflation needs to be taken into
account) plus the time and effort needed to reinstall the ropes in the tree.
The 1/4” is well worth it.
What you can also do is what I do now, sling a rope into the tree and attach a
locking carabiner to one end of the rope and attach a second rope to the other
end of the carabiner. Then, through the carabiner, run another rope – hold one
end on the ground and attach the other end to the antenna wire.
Now you will have rope #1 through the tree and the other attached to the
carabiner with rope #2 attached to the other end of the carabiner. Rope #3
goes through the carabiner – holding one end in your hand and the other
attached to the antenna.
Now carefully pull up rope #1 through the tree until you have the carabiner at
the desired height and tie off rope #1 and rope #2 to two different places.
The pull rope is not in place permanently.
Next, pull rope #3 through the carabiner until your antenna is at the desired
height. and tie of BOTH ends of rope #3 in two different places.
I have skipped a few interim steps for the sake of brevity – but you will
easily figure them out.
The end result is that you have a low stress rope and carabiner near the top of
the tree at the height you want. AND, you now have a low stress pull rope for
your antenna that goes through the carabiner.
If rope #1 ever gets stuck in the tree there is no problem raising or lowering
the antenna through the carabiner! And it is very easy to adjust the tension
from the ground.
I now put up all wire antenna ends using this method. Although it has cost a
few more bucks (a 6 pack of quality locking carabiners cost ~$40) this way, the
incredible amount of time and effort saved not fighting with trees and less
rope abraded, has been repaid many, many fold. This is especially important in
miserable weather when I can raise, lower and replace a line in about 5
minutes, vs. what used to take up to an hour.
73
Bob KQ2M
From: N4ZR
Sent: Tuesday, January 22, 2019 3:26 PM
To: TowerTalk
Subject: [TowerTalk] Tougher antenna rope
I have a small variety of wire HF antennas that I've placed high in my
trees with a tennis ball gun. All great except that the lifetime of the
rope I've been using (3/16" polypropylene braid with an unbraided core)
seems quite short, probably because of chafing against moving branches
near the tops of trees.
Does anyone have suggestions for an alternative, hopefully an economic one?
--
73, Pete N4ZR
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