I've used CopperWeld, but after a year through the seasons, much of the
copper was gone, to be replaced by surface rust. I doubt Al coated
steel would do as well. Solder connections on my C3i antennas 50, 144,
and 44 MHz lasted about 6 to 8 years. They were still working
electrically (more or less), but I had never checked them with the VNA.
SWR was still good. What solder was left was fragile and would crumble
with a little pressure between thumb and forefinger. It only took a
little pressure from one finger to pull the connections apart. That
wire is well away from any sort of soil and the roads here are all paved.
Whether we have a lot of acid rain? I don't know, but with the
prevailing winds mostly from 240 degrees, it's a good distance to any
manufacturing (100 plus miles) Chicago and Gary, Ind are roughly on
that heading at something like 200 miles (give or take 10) Otherwise
it's mainly flatland farming country.
The only nearby manufacturing is in Midland (Dow Chemical and Dow
Corning, close but to here ESE at roughly 8 mile. Hemlock Semiconductor
is about 20 miles just slightly E of due S. and Saginaw which was
Automotive manufacturing. Flint is also at SSE at 60 miles, but the
wind is rarely S to SE, or even SE.
73
Roger (K8RI)
On 9/20/2015 12:05 AM, Jim Thomson wrote:
Date: Fri, 18 Sep 2015 11:49:04 -0400
From: "w1eqo@shaysnet.com" <w1eqo@shaysnet.com>
To: towertalk@contesting.com
Subject: [TowerTalk] Aluminum antenna wire
Message-ID: <380-22015951815494801@M2W111.mail2web.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
I have used many types of Copperweld in my consulting business. A couple of
times I have called their engineering staff about products.
One time I asked about the aluminum on steel product, which I believe was
called "aluminumweld." (Not to be confused with aluminum arc-welding wire)
I was told if the wire was used on ground or buried I would have dust in a
year or two.
Jim, W1EQO
## The stuff F12 used yrs ago for LL was called alumoweld. Works superb, but
in that case, its way up in the air and used for LL. The 12 ga stuff is rated
at 1100 lbs
breaking strength. The 10 ga version is good for aprx 1450-1500 lbs. Its
extremely strong
stuff, and works good. But you have to be careful how you terminate it, etc,
as it has a mind of its
own, and difficult to work with...just like copper clad steel. Don’t let any
of the alumoweld get near the ground
or laying on the ground etc. But if u plan on using alumoweld, u may as well
use copperclad steel, same strength,
but at least you can solder to it etc. F12 use alumoweld, since it interfaced
with the AL standoffs that were bolted to the
al tubing.
## These days I would not mess with LL, just use high Q coils, or T bar
capacity hats, etc.
Jim VE7RF
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