So, can I conclude that I need about 5 W/foot as I believe we sometimes have
an ice build-up of about 1"/hour. As I don't want to leave that on at all time
I need to monitor the temperature AND the humidity. At about 32° and 95% we
have a high risk of ice build-up, that's when I need power on. Start to be
complicated. By the way; I have never been home during the ice storms that took
down my antennas (and with my luck it will probably stay that way).
Hans - N2JFS
How much ice accumulates? YOu can figure out how much heat it takes to melt it
(not much, really)..about 300J/gram. Say a foot of wire (30cm) has 1 cm
diameter of ice on it. THat's about 23 grams/foot.. So, call it 7kJ to melt
all that ice. 1W will melt that in about 2 hours.
AWG 20 wire is 10 milliohms/foot. Run 100 mA through it, and that's 1W/foot.
jimlux
You can easily monitor the wire temperature by measuring the resistance.
Copper has a known substantial positive temperature coefficient.
Rick N6RK
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