[Elecraft] Slinky Question

[Ron D'Eau Claire]

My current antenna installation uses #12 white wire spaced with common
"dog bone" insulators. Unless you are striving for a single-frequency
antenna that doesn't require an ATU, the spacing is not at all
important. Anything from an inch (2 cm) up to 6 inches (15 cm) or so is
fine. The problem with wider spacings is that the line starts to radiate
more at the higher frequencies. Very narrow spacings will reduce the
feeder impedance to the point where efficiency may suffer due to high
system SWR on a multiband doublet or loop. But unless you are planning
to have a "match" feeder system in a self-resonant antenna system,
anything in that range is fine. 

To hole my ladder line, I picked up some cheap 300-ohm type stand-off
screw-eyes from Radio Shack - the kind with the poly insert in a screw
eye to hold 'twinlead'. They are easy to bend, and I used them to hold
my ladder line on my wooden mast. Removed the poly insert, screwed the
eyes into the mast, the clamped the "eye" part around the center of the
'dog-bone' feeder spacer. Ridges on the insulators hold the eye centered
between the lead in wires. Makes a cheap, robust and efficient ladder
line. And the white wire blends in nicely with my white mast. 

Ron AC7AC
K2 # 1289