----- Original Message -----
From: "Gene Smar" <ersmar@comcast.net>
To: "Tom Champlin" <w0hh@msn.com>; "Towertalk" <towertalk@contesting.com>
Sent: Monday, December 22, 2003 5:37 PM
Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] Ground radials
> Tom:
>
> Electrically it doesn't make a difference whether the wire's
insulated
> or not. Mechanically, the insulation gives you a significant degree of
> protection against corrosion and eventual disappearance of the radial
wire.
Purely speculative question here.. does insulated wire suck up water by
capillary action more or less. For stranded, it's probably a wash, but, off
hand, I'd think solid better than stranded, either way (corroded/oxidized
stranded is really evil, RF wise..)
Now that I think about it, what about aluminum wire? (titanium's another
possibility, real corrosion resistant, and you might be able to find it
surplus, but the resistivity's not all that hot).
Since the function of the radial is really to improve the soil conductivity,
and anything metal is better than the soil, the difference between aluminum
and copper might be negligible and, for that matter, steel might be good
enough (although it might rust away almost instantly.. but at least the iron
ions will stay!)
But.. AWG 12 and AWG 14 solid house wire is really cheap because of the huge
volumes (especially if you watch the copper markets and buy when copper
prices are low..)
Magnet wire is also cheap in large volumes. Call up motor rewinders to buy
it.
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