Topband: spacers for ladder line
Garry Shapiro
garry at ni6t.com
Wed May 19 18:47:56 PDT 2010
Re ladder line:
At Dayton, one exhibitor was a small outfit called TennaMax,
_http://www.73cnc.com/_
Offered were weighted knobs for various radios---and a very handy spacer
for open-wire lines. The black Delrin spacers--trademarked as
LadderSnap-- are designed for #14 AWG THHN house wire, which snaps into
the spacers, which are repeated every 18" or so. Spacing between wires
is 4" for a nominal 600 ohms. They are offered in bags of 70 (100') for
$35 and 175 (250') for $80m plus shipping; these are domestic prices.
See the website.
At roughly half a buck each, these spacers are a bit pricey, IMHO, but
they do the job painlessly and efficiently. OTOH, the price per foot of
finished line, including the THHN wire, is less than $.40/ft, which
compares quite favorably with good coax.
I have no connection to the vendor, but remembered this thread when I
saw their display.
Garry, NI6T
On 5/9/2010 8:43 PM, Trent Fleming wrote:
> Friends,
>
> For a variety of reasons, mostly to reduce the visibility of the antenna,
> I'm going to move the center point of my G5RV into a tree (which is
> currently the support for one end of the antenna.) Drop the ladder line
> straight down, and use a switch box to alternate between traditional G5RV
> dipole and a Marconi with radials to try and improve my Topband and 80m
> signal before next winter. I want to space the ladder line off of the tree
> to avoid detuning to the extent possible. I need suggestions for what to
> use to accomplish this - I've seen suggestions for pvc pipe and wooden
> dowels boiled in parafin/wax . . . any other ideas?
>
> I'm fully aware that this is not an optimal setup, but I have to avoid
> visibility of the antenna if at all possible, and the ladder line is just
> too much of an eyesore as it hangs right now.
>
> Your suggestions are much appreciated.
>
> 73,
>
> Trent
> N4DTF
>
>
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