Topband: solder

[Lee K7TJR]

  Roger:  I believe you should narrow your look at the soldered radial option answers to others in your local area before ruling it out. I have weather and ground exposed 60/40 solder connections to circuit board copper radial plates that have been around for over 15 years here in the Pacific Northwest with no apparent degradation. Yes the copper is oxidized but the solder is intact. I think the solder degradation depends a lot on local environmental factors. I recently coated some directly buried solder interconnected radial wires for a 40 meter 4 Square that were connection coated with black PVC glue. In about a year I think I will dig up a couple of these joints and check them out. I will drop a note here on the results when I do. 

73es Lee K7TJR Oregon