On Tue, 21 Sep 2010 19:31:26 -0700, Tom Osborne wrote:
>I'm not sure what flex weave is composed of, but I did see some that a guy
>here had in a 160 meter antenna and it rusted. I think the wire he had
>must have had some iron in it or something. Looked kinda nasty.
That would NOT have been flexweave, but might have been stranded
copperweld. I HATE copperweld, because it is just awful to work with. Those
want a bit more strength should consider hard drawn copper. It's easy to
roll your own by starting with #8 solid copper and stretching it. I've done
that by tying one end of a long length to a solid anchor like a wood
telephone pole and the other end to a car bumper, then stretching it VERY
slowly until it breaks. At that point, it will "sing." As I recall, it
stretched about 10%.
Plain ordinary copper is pretty strong though. If you've rigged it well,
and have decent stretch in one end, it will stand up to quite a lot. I DO
find, however, that my long high dipoles NOT made with hard drawn copper
will stretch under tension after a year or two. My 80/40 fan has been up
about three years. About a year ago, I lowered it and took about a foot or
so off each end. Another year and I may do it again. That one is rigged so
that it's easy to do. Others are not. :)
73, Jim K9YC
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
TowerTalk mailing list
TowerTalk@contesting.com
http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/towertalk
|