I have 1/8" olive drab dacron line which I favor. For longer term
installations,
I also have some 1/4" o.d. dacron. Have used both with a low
profile carolina windom
here in NJ.
I bought some 1/8" kevlar line, black, as well, but find that's a bit
stiff and
heavier than the dacron. As a result, it's harder to get launched.
My technique is to use a fishing arrow and game-tracker system.
The game tracker
string is 15 lb test. Depending on tree height, this may get you a
direct from
game tracker to 1/8" dacron transition... for taller trees, you may
need to use some
intermediate string... and I bought a reel of mason's string from
Home Depot for $5 which
serves that purpose.
Based on experience, I've settled on #12 insulated flexweave wire as
my standard,
and have run up to 1.2 kw without end insulators, by simply tying a
loop in the wire,
and another in the dacron line.
One caveat: When working with pine trees, the sap will glue the
rope to the tree,
resulting in real stress on the antenna. It will be nearly
impossible to pull the line from
the tree, if you want to take the antenna down. Thus, in this
situation, I would favor
use of pullies.
Up in VT, I had a 160m windom held up by 1/4" o.d. dacron, between
two 140' pine trees.
Came time to bring it down for some maintenance. I wound up having
to tie a turning block
to a line at the base of the tree, and run a line down to my jeep,
100' away. I backed down
the driveway a reasonable distance, heavily tensioning the line.
Then, suddenly, it went
slack.. as a branch came down from on top, 4" in diameter!
The damned dacron rope
was embedded in the thing by almost 1/2", and glued fast with sap.
The mass of that branch coming down from 100' would have killed
anyone under the tree.
Appropriate caution is advised.
N2EA
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