Tony, I used WD1 for 4-square control wire out here for years when I had
control wires laying on the top of the ground. It's incredibly tough
and stood up with a bunch of other el-cheap-o wire I had picked up died
fast due to UV degradation causing insulation failure.
The wire has some voltage drop but that's easy enough to fix if you have
a monster run - I juiced my 400 & 800' runs with 15V on the controller
end at the shack by default and never had an issue out there in the
boonies. I did double up the conductors for each instead of splitting
them off individually (meaning a "run" would give me 2 net wires to use,
not 4) but that was out of paranoia that I would cut or damage the wire
laying on the ground. But a guy should NEVER bury just enough control
wires because you never know what may happen. Especially with wire that
comes literally "by the mile."
Not sure what "long term" is in your context. My "temporary" use went
from 2012 to 2017 and the only problems I had with that stuff is when I
got it hung up in my mower deck.
Worked great out here in the boonies when finding money for "good stuff"
was just not in cards.
73/jeff/ac0c
alpha-charlie-zero-charlie
www.ac0c.com
On 4/14/20 10:37 AM, Gedas wrote:
We used to work with the stuff back when we certification tested
Sincgars R/T's etc. There are at least 4 variants of "WD-1" wire that
I was aware of. There may be many more.
WD-1/TT, WD-1A/TT, WD-36/TT, WD-14/TT. As I recall the WD-1/TT was
just a "twisted pair" molded insulation with each wire made up of 3
steel & 4 copper wires, the WD-1A/TT was a "glued-pair"with each wire
made up of 3 steel & 4 copper wires, and the WD-36/TT was also a
"glued pair" of wires with each wire being just a pair of steel wires.
WD-14/TT was the same as WD-1/TT but had a woven cloth covering. It
was never designed to be deployed and left out there for very long.
The DC resistance spec for WD-1/TT was that it had to be less than 46
ohms/1000'.
Gedas, W8BYA EN70JT
Gallery at http://w8bya.com
Light travels faster than sound....
This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.
On 4/13/2020 6:51 PM, tony.kaz--- via TowerTalk wrote:
Has anyone ever measured the resistance of WD-1A cable? If so it will
save
the trouble of pulling some off a spool to test.
Also the plan would be to use to control 12V to relays at the
feedpoints of
my 80M 4-Sq. The cable would be buried except for the vertical
portion as
the feedpoints are elevated. Based on previous experience with WD-1A
outside
I saw rusting of the wires. Is this wire typically only used for
temporary
use or have folks had success with using something like liquid tape
to seal
the ends where terminals were soldered?
My backup plan is to buy a 500' spool of Southwire Landscape wire 16/2
stranded copper.
73 and stay safe
N2TK, Tony
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