Topband: Electric Fence

[ABowenN4OO <abowen@nettally.com>]

At 08:09 PM 8/27/2004 -0400, you wrote:
> The white tail deer here in Eastern Pennsylvania are eating my wife's 
> landscaping and she wants to install an electric high tensile wire fence 
> around the property.  That means horizontal wires only 1/4 wavelength away 
> from my new pride and joy, a 4 square array on 80 meters.
>
> Will the horizontal wires attenuate the signals into the vertical array?
>
> Will they change the impedance of the nearest elements so much as to 
> significantly perturb the array's pattern?
=====================================
I have to fence my garden to keep the deer out. The Fish and Wildlife 
"experts" claim that the fence has to be 8' high to keep them out. They 
will also go under if your lowest wire is too high.

I made the first wire at about 30" and a second one about 45" or "nose 
height" on your deer. Ours are smaller than northern deer. The rest of the 
wires do not have to be electrified, since a jumping deer will not 
completed the electrical circuit required for a shock.

I have only a couple of trees that can be used, so for the rest of the 
posts, I used 1 1/4" PVC pipe over cheap 5' steel fence posts. If you use 
the more sturdy 6 ft fence post, you probably will have to use 1 1/2" PVC. 
BTW, I use the same scheme for my Beverage antennas.

The lowest wires, the ones the deer will contact, should be steel fence 
wire. We buy that locally in 1/4 mile spools for 11-12 bux a spool (#17 
galvanized). I used insulators on the PVC pipe which may be overkill. I 
just figured that during wet weather, the PVC would not be a good insulator 
for HV. I have no measurements to back that up.

The top one should probably also be steel fence wire, but electrifying it 
does no good unless you have deer that can stand on their hind feet. In 
between, I used 30# monofilament fishing line. It is cheap and effective. 
They will poke it with their nose or head and decide that it is an 
obstruction. I have had them try to go over, but not through the mono.

Electric fence controllers usually operate at about 1 second between 
pulses. Depending on proximity of your receiving antenna to the wires, you 
will hear a "click" in your receiver. If you have imperfect insulation and 
a spark gap somewhere, the click will be much louder. I can barely hear 
mine (in the rcvr) when it is operating correctly, but if a leakage path 
develops or there is a poor connection as at a gate, then the system will 
arc. You can actually hear it snap when you get close to it.

I also use a light sensistive switch to turn it on and off.

My garden is about 75 X 75'. I am going to change this year and put netting 
around it. Nylon Net Company makes netting for bird and deer control. One 
model is 7' tall. I can install that on my PVC poles and then use a single 
electric wire for the space below to keep them from going under.

Early on, I put just the single wire. That worked for just one season. They 
soon found they could easily jump that. I added a second wire at about 45" 
and that also worked for a short time. Eventually, they jumped that also. 
So far, they have not gone over the 8 footer, although I did see a bent 
wire one morning, indicating that one had tried and then decided to go 
elsewhere.

You can get a catalog from Nylon Net Company at  www.nylonnet.com   1 800 
238 7529

You can buy other fencing materials from Agri 
Supply  www.agri-supply.com   1 800 345 0169

You may also have local suppliers for the same materials. Nylon Net also 
offers some braided ropes and twines at reasonable prices and in lengths 
you can't get at the big hardware stores.


1 800 238 7529

INK N4OO
Sopchoppy, FL

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