[Lowfer] antenna current

[WE0H]

Run 'em straight where you can and around corners and where ever else you
can to provide the most coverage of the ground. Some of my 135' runs zigzag
to fit where I wanted them to go. My lot is also a 1/4th acre and I have
coverage everywhere. It will suck big time later when the wife wants you to
dig a hole to plant something, but the solder iron fixes what you chopped
off. So in a nutshell, put down as much wire as you can afford or until
there is no more space to fit another wire. I have over 3000' of #14 THHN in
the ground with many 8 & 4 foot copper pipes driven under the grass so no
one can see them. I got lucky and used a wire measuring/cutting machine to
zip out all my radials. It even stripped the one end so I could solder it to
the center ground stakes. I run many wires direct to a 3/4th inch by 8-foot
long pipe and soldered other wires to wires that were connected to the pipe
and many to another stake close to the first one. You will quickly run out
of spots on the pipe to solder wires to so may need to splice into other
wires by the stake or keep adding stakes and tie them all together like I
did. It is a mess but I did most of the connections down a foot into the
ground so I could bury them and not see them. I did cover all connections
with liquid tape goop to keep the moisture out of the wire. The ideal
situation, but costs money, is a big copper plate with a hole in the center
for a ground pipe. Solder the plate to the pipe after the pipe is driven in
the ground and solder all your wires to the plate. Fun huh???

Well you get the idea; just lay down plenty of copper. You can sometimes run
some into the neighbors yard by slitting the grass with a steak knife and
pushing the wire into the ground with screwdriver, but you have to do this
at night!!! Have fun.

Mike>WE0H


-----Original Message-----
From: lowfer-admin@mailman.qth.net [mailto:lowfer-admin@mailman.qth.net]
On Behalf Of Eric Smith
Sent: Friday, October 17, 2003 9:27 AM
To: lowfer@mailman.qth.net
Subject: RE: [Lowfer] antenna current

> 1/4th acre huh??? Piece of cake then. You can easily get down 135'radials
> and some longer than that. Cut them in 135 and 66-foot lengths so at some
> point in time you can run the vertical on LF, 160 & 75 meters.

Hmmm...I don't know, Mike...the longest straight run I have is only about
70'.  I *could* run some longer ones, but they'd have to make a turn, go
around the side of the house, and out into the front yard toward the
street.

Does it matter if they are not straight?  Can I make sharp turns around
the house like that?

And what about the lengths?  I didn't think the lengths would matter at LF
and was just going to run them whereever I could in whatever lengths I
could.

What do you think?

Eric

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