[Elecraft] More on antenna wire.

[Geoffrey Mackenzie-Kennedy]

Hi Phil,

Forgot to add that I use Flex Weave wire for both Horizontal and Vertical
antennas. Like Julius said it is super to work with and very strong.You can
tie knots in it. Although I am not too keen about using heavily insulated
wire, the insulation does protect the copper from birds' claws and other
flying objects. If I have to make a joint, I solder the copper ends together
(usually a no no ), lay about a foot of 1.6 mm Kevlar alongside for
reinforcement, give the copper,adjacent Kevlar and nearby wire insulation a
good coating of Petroleum Jelly (Vaseline) to keep moisture and beasties
out, and cover with flexible UV resistant heatshrink (not overdoing the
shrinking). I usually cover all that with more jelly. Seems to work as I
checked a joint recently that has been up for five years - jelly OK , no
signs of corrosion and no beasties.

Also use Jelly to weatherproof coax connectors (N type) before wrapping with
+33 tape. Could run a kW at a couple of QTHs past with no problems caused by
Jelly - HF and VHF. Don't know how UHF connectors would behave.

73,

Geoff.