[R-390] Antenna wire

[Transmaster]

There was a Ham  up in central Wyoming that had a similar situtation
except his piece of abandoned REA wire was about 15 miles long.  It
got out like gang busters but he told me the problem he had was unkown
lightning strikes from thunderstorms down the line nailing his
equipment. He decided to go back to more conventional sized antennas.

On 11/22/06, mikea <mikea at mikea.ath.cx> wrote:
> On Tue, Nov 21, 2006 at 08:56:20PM -0700, Transmaster wrote:
>
> > On 11/21/06, Bernard nicholson <vk2abn at bigpond.net.au> wrote:
> > > I have found that the best WIRE for antennas is galvanised iron
> > > fencing wire ! People worry about resistance ect but when you
> > > have very little current flowing resistance isn't a problem ,
> > > even when used as a transmit antenna the difference in radiation
> > > efficiency over copper is around 4% in Db terms this needs pretty
> > > good instrumentation to measure, When one looks at commercial
> > > antenna suppliers one finds that their range of wire antennas such
> > > as Broadband deltas and logperiodic arrays ect. come in three
> > > versions , HARD DRAWN COPPER , GALVANISED IRON AND STAINLESS
> > > STEEL, the last being for corrosive areas by the Sea , 8 gauge
> > > fencing wire is cheap and doesn't stretch , I have a 160 meter
> > > dipole at 90 ft between a couple of big trees its a 280Ft span
> > > and I have nearly half a ton of tension on it its been up there
> > > with no trouble since 1991 , I regularly hear and work the US
> > > from Australia on 160 using this antenna , On the subject if
> > > insulators They are sold here in Australia in Farm Produce stores
> > > for Electric fences both ceramic and High impact plastic ,they are
> > > very good and very cheap , The galvanised iron is a bit harder
> > > to solder to but with a hot 300Watt iron not too difficult , You
> > > need a nice big pair of Electricians pliers to handle it and you
> > > need to make sure you don't kink it , That's about it ,Not rocket
> > > science , Regards to all Bernie Nicholson Vk2abn
>
> > Well I once loaded up a ten mile long stretch of barbed wire fence.
> > It was amazing I was miles away from any power lines. I had a King
> > Kong signal despite the fact the top fence wire was about 4 feet off
> > of the ground.
>
> Out in the sticks southwest of where I live, a friend has a 2-mile
> straight-line stretch of decommissioned Rural Electric Co-Op power
> line. At least he _says_ it's decommissioned. If I had some way to
> make *Absolutely* *Sure* that it was cold and would *stay* cold, I'd
> be willing to try it as an antenna. That's a big piece'o'wire.
>
> --
> Mike Andrews, W5EGO
> mikea at mikea.ath.cx
> Tired old sysadmin
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