Why buy new wire for radials? Scrap copper wire is everywhere! Take apart
anything electronic and you'll find lots of wire free for the labor of taking
it. OK, yeah, if you want 10,000 feet of wire is a lot of work. But, do 100'
here, 50' feet there and, using patience and ingenuity you will achieve your
goal. Look up scrappers on YT and there are lots of good ideas. Find your local
hoarder!
73
-de "Curly" John NI0K
QRZ.com<https://www.qrz.com/db/ni0k>
Hamshack Hotline<https://hamshackhotline.com/> call me: 6100271
On 11/2/2025 6:39 AM, Rob Atkinson wrote:
Over the past 10 years the price of copper per pound has gone from
around $2 to over $5 on the London Metals Exchange. The supply and
demand are driving this as copper gets squeezed by mining problems and
demand from the power industry and the construction of AI computing
facilities. The end result for hams is that the standard ground
system is becoming financially out of reach for the average casual
operator on the low bands. Even a 160 meter half wave dipole is
getting pricey and a cage dipole? Forget it. I used to give hams
some flack for being stingy on the number of radials they deploy
because the barrier used to just be laziness, but now a decent ground
system costs serious money, especially on 160 m. Cost saving measures
such as elevated radials deserve consideration.
73
Rob
K5UJ
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