TopBand: Big Rope Thinggy

[km1h @ juno.com]

On Wed, 15 Apr 1998 06:41:51 +0800 Steve Ireland <sire@omen.com.au>
writes:
>For those with trees and big saggy 160m dipoles:
>
>The best (only) way I have found to keep a dipole halyard running 
>smoothly
>over or up a tree is to use stainless or galvanized steel halyards, 
>straight
>over the top of the tree.  Pulley systems inevitably get stuck in 
>trees and
>even the toughest Dacron or nylon will fray.  Nice old greasy guy 
>wires
>slide well!

Many moons ago I had a G5RV between two 70' pine trees. The antenna was
made of #10 Copperweld and large surplus insulators.
At both ends I used heavy duty springs from overhead garage
doors....found at the town dump.  I used more #10 to go around the tree,
etc. and used a length of garden hose to keep the wire from growing into
the tree.  That antenna survived everything including hurricanes for 7
years until I moved.  It was amazing to watch all the other trees sway
violently but those two barely moved in comparison.

I never used pulleys but others I know have had good results with marine
grade used for wire rope.

73  Carl  KM1H

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