I'm looking for input from others concerning best practices for crimping lugs onto solid copper wire that's exposed to the outside elements. Here's why: A few months ago, N4CC and I lost rotational c
Good point, Jim. Yes, #10 solid-wire Romex. See links below. This is what I recently ordered from Mouser. These lugs have a tongued body which mate nicely with the prop pitch's electrical barrier st
we don't launch into the crimp vs solder debate." As I recall, past list debates concentrated mainly on crimp v. soldered RF connectors. In this case, each crimped Romex terminal lug failed with inf
Today's EFHW and OCF dipoles replace yesterday's 43 ft vertical. There was a time when the League wouldn't allow these antennas into the pages of QST. Anyone recall when QST put Garant Enterprises o
And a good one for Dean Straw to answer. When we conduct an HFTA analysis of a single antenna that results in extremely high ground reflection gain between 0 and 5 degrees elevation, minor changes i
resistor or choke?" I'll throw this out for others to comment on, but this is the general rule of thumb I've used when calculating the value of a static choke across a typical base-fed vertical radi
Out in the field, I've been using a Weller P2KC butane iron. As Pete explained, the flame stays contained within the tip. Its construction is very solid but like all soldering devices, it's susceptib
Ignacy, There's a lot of published information that addresses your question. Some material is rooted in commercial applications and even more in the amateur literature where modeling is compared with
Jorge, N6LF's material is based largely on measured results in support of theory. Paul, W9AC --Original Message-- From: TowerTalk <towertalk-bounces@contesting.com> On Behalf Of Jorge Diez - CX6VM Se
The Potomac Instruments FIM-41 is capable of directly-read field strength measurements and has a spec'd measurement range up to 5 MHz. Would like to have one myself. Measured field strength graphs t
Brian, Isn't the measured probe result only useful for near-field system efficiency analysis? By near-field I mean to obtain system efficiency within a wavelength or so of a vertical radiator. But fo
Jim (K9YC), When making Rs measurements are you using the S11 or S21 method? Steve, G3TXQ was an advocate of S21 while Owen, VK2OMD claims S11 results in better accuracy with high Rs values. I've bee
I own a RT4500HD but waiting on cooler weather for installation. It seems robust enough as it's replacing a small form-factor prop-pitch. Between excessive water leakage after rebuilds and K7NV now S
After 15 years, a pair of PL-259 connectors have seized on mating SO-239 jacks used on an outdoor RF choke. Is there anything more suitable than Penatrox-A which is Au/Cu rated? Ideally, I'd like to
After 15 years, a pair of PL-259 connectors have seized on their mating SO-239 jacks used on an outdoor RF choke. Is there anything more suitable than Penatrox-A which is Au/Cu rated? Ideally, I'd li
Try this: https://hamwaves.com/zc.circular/en/ Paul, W9AC Morning folks and Happy New Year to all. I am looking for equations, or an on-line calculator, for open-wire transmission line using differen
I've not seen an instance of using open wire line using two different wire sizes (i.e., a different wire size of d1 and d2 for each conductor), if that's what you mean. If it is then the answer is he
tower, does anybody here have experience regarding the effectiveness of the rubber seal included in the prop pitch ? No, it doesn't unless a rain shield is installed. I have a graveyard of six prop
George, if that's in addition to the main seal, then you've found a viable means to protect it from decomposition. I should emphasize that the root cause of my water ingress problem has been due to
Same here in my county with a 140 ft self-supporting Pirod tower. The tower is in a rural area on the FL/GA state line. The county inspector measured the distance from the nearest corner of the tower