[Amps] Observations on a Pi-L tank

[Bill Turner]

ORIGINAL MESSAGE:

At 12:15 PM 3/10/2006, Scott Townley wrote:
>I could accomplish that with 1/4" tubing or with some existing 2" 
>B&W coilstock, but it's only 14AWG.  Both will easily give me 
>Qo>200.  So what's the difference?  I'd rather use the coilstock 
>(less work for me).

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
My experience tells me that even at the 650 watt level, 14 AWG wire 
is marginally too small for a 17/12 meter tank coil. It will run hot 
and with a hot coil, you do not want B&W miniductor with it's 
polystyrene supports. Even if it appears to work ok for a while, 
sometime in the future you may accidentally mistune it (lightly 
loaded) and have abnormally high circulating current and the 
temperature will go up and the miniductor will go "sproing", a sound 
you do not want to hear, trust me, I know.

Best to be conservative with these things. Do it like Alpha would do it.

Bill, W6WRT