[SEDXC] Damn wire antennas

[JT Croteau]

Ok, some major whining coming up from me, press the delete key while you can.

Why do wire antennas ALWAYS cause me so much damn frustration?  I just
want one reliable, decent bandwidth, resonant antenna up in the air so
I can start running some DX on a daily basis again.

Earlier this week, I ordered some nice 14AWG flexweave wire, a nice
porcelain center insulator, and two nice W2DU end insulators bound and
determined to build a nice, clean, simple, and resonant 20M dipole.

Today, I get the wire all cut, centered in the middle of the 20M band,
and the center insulator all soldered up nice and clean, probably my
best solder job yet on a dipole.  I had some real nice ultra low-loss
coax with a PL-259 on one end and pigtails on the other all ready to
go that I soldered up to the center.  The feedline is about 20' long,
just long enough to meet up with a long piece of feedline K4DLI loaned
me to reach the shack in the front of my house.

I route the ends through the end insulators and make them all nice and
tight.  I decide not to solder these in case I need to trim the dipole
after I test it in the air.

I get home tonight from a long day at the shop ready to hoist the
antenna in the air.  I already had some dacron rope in the tree from a
previous, failed, attempt to get a wire in the air.

I start hoisting it in the air and get the far end up 50' in the tree.
 The plan was to then pull the other end to the far end of the
property and tie it off to the fence leaving the dipole in a slight
sloped angle.  I start pulling and almost ready to tie off when the
whole damn thing comes crashing down.

The far end, because I thought I was smart and didn't solder it, had
slipped out of the far end insulator.  It now lays in a pile of
tangled mess on the ground, at the base of my tallest tree, on top of
all the other failed wires I was too frustrated to clean up.

Now that there is very little weight on the line, the rope in the tree
is still up there stuck in the racken-fracken tree.  It's now almost
pitch black outside as the sun has fully set 15 minutes prior.  To top
it off, my slingshot broke the last time I shot the line in the tree.

Ugh!

It's always a true comedy of errors whenever I go to put a wire up,
someone take my Extra class away from me please.  I am truly not
worthy.  To think, I used to build custom wiring harnesses for hot
rods and race cars yet I can't get a simple dipole in the air!!

--
  JT Croteau - W6FO - Canton, GA
  ARS #2,147 | NoGA-QRP | SEDXC | SECC | ARRL