I recently had occasion to dig across some radials of the first 40M vertical
I installed at my present QTH. That was in 1986, and I used covered hookup
wire, #20 or so, both solid and stranded as well as uncovered copper wire
and what may have been fence wire (it was given to me and that's what it
looked like).
Inspection of the hookup wire I unearthed indicated that it was in about the
same condition as when I installed it. The jacket was intact and the wire
was in good shape. I found one copper uncovered wire and it too was in
reasonably good shape...oxidized but intact. There was no sign of any of
the fence wires...it may be that I did not trench across any of them.
All radials were buried at about 1-2 inches depth. I have continued to use
hookup wire for radials, soldering pieces together to make the required
length and using coax seal over the joints. Last year I really needed some
wire for a radial to put in a water pipe trench and I unwound a transformer
core...it yielded a surprising amount of #18 wire (but it is a tough way to
get wire!)
A few years ago I found a 500 foot reel of 4-wire rotator cable at a
wholesale place that was cleaning out stock...this is the stuff that fellows
used to make parallel dipoles out of decades ago...4 parallel wires that
rip apart easily. Nobody uses this stuff any more and I got it for $10...it
yielded a lot of radials!!
I'm sure everyone out there has a source of wire to share and help keep the
cost down.
Bill, VE3NH
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