Hi Pete,
One hams experiences of many which I'm sure you will receive.
I live on the OR coast (literally) and my towers and wire antennas are
subject to winds that reach up into the 70's and 80's during the winter.
I have single wires up for 40, 80 and 160 as well as a horizontal fan
dipole for 40/80/160 (an experiment I'm playing with). I've used a lot
of different ropes during the 60 plus years of hamming and playing with
wire antennas.
I keep going back to where to I can procure rope that is designed for
UV, salt spray, rot and wet weather AND which has good breaking
strength, plus easy to work with.
Here it is a facility on the coast who caters to the commercial fishing
industry called Englund Marine and their store in Newport. They carry a
number of rope products that I've used, 3 I've listed below. However, in
the last few years I've gone totally to the tarred twisted seine rope
(they call it twine). Some has been up for 18 years and is still is good
shape. I've never had a rope failure with it (the first one listed
below). I sometimes terminate the rope ends with Nicopress sleeves or
stops or a end coating compound. Also use almost always the good old
bowline knot. Never had one of these come apart except when I wanted it
to!!!!
Here I've not used rope over limbs since wayI found them becoming
embedded in the limb after time and sometimes impossible to put down. I
have a logger friend who for a nice bottle or two of Johnny Walker will
go up the 100 to 150 foot Spruce trees around the edges of my property,
screw a big eyebolt in and attach a pulley and string ropes for me. For
counterweights to keep the lines relatively taut when the wind is
blowing and the trees are moving I use old window sash weights (getting
harder and harder to find).
I would suspect ANY such facility near your location who caters to the
commercial fishing community and whose livelihood depends on furnishing
rope and other products that will withstand the rigors of salt water
would carry something similar (West Marine excluded who caters to
recreational boaters).
Don T W7WLL
https://www.englundmarine.com/products/twisted-seine-twine---tarred%7CTWN-SEINET.html
<https://www.englundmarine.com/products/twisted-seine-twine---tarred%7CTWN-SEINET.htmlhttps://www.englundmarine.com/products/amsteel-rope%7CSAM-870.htmlhttps://www.englundmarine.com/products/blue-steel-poly-3-strand-rope%7CCWC-BS.html>
https://www.englundmarine.com/products/amsteel-rope%7CSAM-870.html
<https://www.englundmarine.com/products/twisted-seine-twine---tarred%7CTWN-SEINET.htmlhttps://www.englundmarine.com/products/amsteel-rope%7CSAM-870.htmlhttps://www.englundmarine.com/products/blue-steel-poly-3-strand-rope%7CCWC-BS.html>
https://www.englundmarine.com/products/blue-steel-poly-3-strand-rope%7CCWC-BS.html
<https://www.englundmarine.com/products/twisted-seine-twine---tarred%7CTWN-SEINET.htmlhttps://www.englundmarine.com/products/amsteel-rope%7CSAM-870.htmlhttps://www.englundmarine.com/products/blue-steel-poly-3-strand-rope%7CCWC-BS.html>
On 1/22/2019 12:26 PM, N4ZR wrote:
I have a small variety of wire HF antennas that I've placed high in my
trees with a tennis ball gun. All great except that the lifetime of
the rope I've been using (3/16" polypropylene braid with an unbraided
core) seems quite short, probably because of chafing against moving
branches near the tops of trees.
Does anyone have suggestions for an alternative, hopefully an economic
one?
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