[Elecraft] KX1 Antenna Wire - Portable antenna wire comment

[EricJ]

 I've been near your neighborhood (Huntsville) and I remember lots of trees
for antenna supports, Mike. Most of my daypacking and even car camping is in
the desert where a crappie pole is the highest thing around unless I can
find a large boulder to secure to. Even #22 teflon and RG-316 or -174 causes
the top to droop like there's a small mouth bass on the hook. Weight aloft
is an important consideration in some cases. Sometimes I use a longer
feedline so that I can take the shortest route to the ground, then along the
ground to the rig instead of the shortest route to the rig. This often
reduces the weight aloft, reducng the load on the crappie pole. 

Also, small teflon is not fragile at all if you take the strain on the
covering and not the wire itself. I'm nervous with #26, but I have not had a
failure with #22. It is remarkably strong and stretch-free stuff. Colorful
too! I use yellow or red on ground radials to stand out where it is a trip
hazard, and white or blue aloft to blend in for aesthetics.

The other reason I like small teflon is that I just bunch it up instead of
winding it, then roll a velcro strap around the wad. It doesn't tangle. It
just springs apart when I unwrap the velcro. I treat radials the same way
when the only thing I can put up is an end fed wire fastened to an uphill
boulder.  If you coil wire, rope or any other cordage, you have to uncoil it
or you have a potential mess. I might add that these boulders are often the
size of a house.

My K1 ATU seems to take anything remotely resembling an antenna in stride.

Eric
KE6US
www.ke6us.com

-----Original Message-----
From: elecraft-bounces at mailman.qth.net
[mailto:elecraft-bounces at mailman.qth.net] On Behalf Of Mike Morrow
Sent: Saturday, July 23, 2005 11:00 AM
To: elecraft reflector
Subject: Re: [Elecraft] KX1 Antenna Wire - Portable antenna wire comment



There's a natural tendency to want super small antenna components to go with
our similarly compact QRP rigs.  IMHO, that is a grand mistake.   I've
*never* come across even one portable-use situation where the use of stuff
like RG-174 coax or 26 AWG wire was appropriate compared, say,  to RG-58 and
Flexweave.