[TenTec] Stainless Steel Antenna Wire

Fri, 14 Jun 2002 20:23:03 GMT

I thought the discussion was just on using Stainless Steel for antenna wire and someone used an example to show that it is done.  But, since you brought it up...

I would venture to say that the B&W BWD 2-25 works better than a buried wire.  In fact, I have accidentally loaded up my ground rod with radials before and I could hear very few stations, if any.  And I can hear a lot of stations on my B&W antenna.  Sure, transmitting on the B&W some power gets dissipated in the termination resistor - so what? It's not the only antenna out there that uses a termination resistor, or whatever they choose to call it.  I guess you could call it a leaky dummy load too.  There are a lot of other factors involved in putting a signal in the air and receiving one.  That's the REAL world, and then there is the theory.  For my station, sometimes the B&W is better, sometimes it's my vertical...it "depends".  So maybe it is whatever fits your requirements.  After trying a number of antennas at my aluminum sided, housing project lot, low elevation, limited space, mast pipe supported antenna QTH, I have a least one coax fed antenna that will "adequately" cov!
er all the HF spectrum (admittedly poorly on 160), plus a vertical that covers some of the bands.  And signal reports, at least for me, except 160, don't reflect much different than the other antennas I have used and are somtimes better, sometimes worse than other operators receive from the same station.  Oh, and I normally use anywhere from 15 to 50 watts output, no problem.  Most of the time it doesn't take much...

Now, I didn't know that government radio operators are not "normal radio people"?  I have met some, and used to work at, I guess you could call it a government radio site (Emergency Management/Communications), so I'm not sure what that means.  Most of the folks I met through there were knowledgeable and well educated and/or experienced.  But then, maybe that isn't "normal".

73 de Mark N8COO
A.A.S., E.E.T.

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