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Re: Topband: Outdoor rope suggestions

To: topband@contesting.com
Subject: Re: Topband: Outdoor rope suggestions
From: Jim Brown <jim@audiosystemsgroup.com>
Reply-to: jim@audiosystemsgroup.com
Date: Thu, 04 Sep 2014 09:05:44 -0700
List-post: <topband@contesting.com">mailto:topband@contesting.com>
On Thu,9/4/2014 8:10 AM, Carl wrote:
As far as the antenna wire it will likely be #10 or 12 solid deep well motor wire as I have a lot of it salvaged for the asking back when copper was still cheap.

GM Carl,

Be prepared for any copper wire to stretch under the sort of tension that I am using and that you plan to use. One of my high dipoles is an 80/40 fan that I built about six years ago with #10 stranded THHN. Every couple of years, I have drop it and cut a foot or two from each end.

Hoping to minimize that, I've been buying #8 solid copper from Home Depot and stretching it in the hope of making it hard drawn. W6GJB and I tie one end to a tree, the other to the trailer hitch on his pickup, and slowly pull until it breaks. We get roughly 10-15% stretch. About six months ago, I used some of it to add a reflector to one of my 80M dipoles, and pulled the tension tight. It's sagged quite a bit. I haven't measured it since.

73, Jim K9YC
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