[Heathkit] Heathkit Digest, Vol 83, Issue 22

[G3OOU at aol.com]

Hi Don
 
I have been a very long time user of ladder line although mine is home made 
 with a spacing of 0.9 inches between 16# conductors. I run mine out of an 
air  brick in the shack, along a brick wall for some 30 feet spaced about 5 
inches  away and then up into the air to the centre of the dipole, a total 
run of  about 85 feet. It seems to work with little change in the Z-Match 
tuning points  in sun, rain and snow and recently the entire feeder was encased 
in light snow  with no obvious difference in operation on the HF bands. I 
have never covered it  at from the weather at any location.
 
I have never considered burying it in the garden but my gut  feeling would 
be to make sure that the soil was several wire spacings  away from the 
conductors in any direction and to make sure that the aerial was  well balanced. 
This implies keeping the feeders in the middle of your  appropriately sized 
water pipe with some form of spacer. Possibly inside,  say, a half or three 
quarter inch pipe for support that itself was held  centrally in a rather 
larger pipe (a bit like all plastic coax), making sure  that the larger pipe 
stayed dry on the inside.
 
Just some rough ideas.
 
73

Bob

Bob F Burns
C Eng,  FIET, MSE
Amateur Radio Callsign: G3OOU
Registered RSGB  Instructor
G-QRP Member No: 6907; Zone: 14, QRA: IO91WH; WAB: TQ25
Joint  web site with Crystal Palace Radio & Electronics Club: 
_www.g3oou.co.uk_ (http://www.g3oou.co.uk/) 
Technical web site: _www.qsl.net/g3oou _ (http://www.qsl.net/g3oou)