[Antennas] Wire mainenance

[Dave Sublette]

Good evening,

I have had almost 2000 feet of #14 polyethylene black jacketed Flexweave in the air for over ten years.  The wire is used to form 8, 130 foot radials for my elevated 160 meter vertical and four dipoles for 3230 KHz. I recently had to take the dipoles down for maintenance.  The outer jacket looked as if it were new. The center insulator section is the “Acrobat”, which uses stainless steel screws to secure the connections between the coax and the dipole wires. These connections were corroded to the point that electrical contact was lost.   In addition, the flexweave, under the polyethylene coating, was corroded on both ends when I stripped back about a half inch of the coating.  The resistance of each of the eight wires was measured to be between  0.3 and 5.3 ohms.  6 of the wires measured between 0.3 and 0.7 ohms.  The remaining two measured 2.1 and 5.3 ohms.  This was after I cleaned and tinned the ends.  However, I didn’t use the acid flux bath recommended in the technical paper on the website.  I will do that soon.

 

I have one overriding question.  How do I prevent the corrosion from reoccurring?  Do I  1) coat the stainless steel to copper connections with Pentrox, No-alox,  or some similar electrical joint compound?  2) Seal the connection with some sort of epoxy, or caulking?  And 3)  If I can restore the end to end low resistance of  0.3 ohms or better,  using the acid bath treatment on each end,  Is the wire still useable for antennas and ground radials, even though I know there is corrosion on the individual wires under the polyethylene coating?  Do I need to take down the radials and treat them?

 

I am 75 years old, a graduate BSEE, and an extra class amateur for 60 years.  This will probably be the last time I put this array up.  I want to do it the best way possible.  At least there isn’t salt in the air in Kentucky as there would be on a beach somewhere….

 

73,



K4TO