Topband: Fw: Dacron & varmits

Tue Feb 18 18:20:35 EST 2020

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From: Charles Moizeau <w2sh at msn.com>
Sent: Tuesday, February 18, 2020 18:00
To: Gary at ka1j.com <Gary at ka1j.com>
Subject: Re: Topband: Dacron & varmits

I have for years used the polyester (Dacron is a polyester branded by the Dupont company) products of Synthetic Textiles of Anaheim CA.  They sell directly to hams if you buy enough length.  Shorter lengths of their products are sold by DX Engineering at somewhat higher prices.

I considerably improve the outdoor durability by impregnating the ropes in a molten mixture of two parts beeswax (obtained from bee keepers) and one part paraffin (obtained from the home canning section of a supermarket.  It is important to melt these waxes in a container that is surrounded by a larger container that holds boiling water.  Do NOT set the wax container over an open flame!  I got an inexpensive set of three large stainless steel containers for around $35 several years ago.

After the wax mixture is melted, toss in bundles of rope, stir it around with stainless steel tongs, shake the wax out into its container with the tongs, remove the rope bundles and let them dry on a piece of scrap plywood.  When hardened, run the rope through appropriately sized holds drilled in a piece of fairly thick steel angle iron and add the wax scraps back in with the previously molten wax.

Done!

I use the 3/16" od rope for antenna halyards and 3/32" od rope for pull-down ropes that are not under tension.  For pulley support lines that are sleeved with several feet of 3/8" id air compressor hose for the portion of the line that passes through a tree crotch I use a rope that is polyester but has a Kevlar core.  Its od is very close to 3/16, maybe 11/64".  It will absolutely not stretch, and this is important because I don't want the pulley to be pulled away from the tree crotch when the halyard that passes through its sheave is tightened.

Lots of squirrels live near my antenna lines and even in an oak tree that has been used to support a dipole. Only there I did have some nibbling.  I lowered the halyard, removed the gnawed section of rope, and tossed it back in the molten wax to which I added a few tablespoons of spicy chile powder.  This was not  supermarket red pepper nor the what gets sprinkled on pizza. No sir; this was serious stuff--dried and ground habanero peppers (from Southwest Specialty Food, Glendale, AZ).  The problem was ended with the squirrels having what went out just as hot as what went in.

73,

Charles, W2SH
    .

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From: Topband <topband-bounces+w2sh=msn.com at contesting.com> on behalf of Gary Smith <Gary at ka1j.com>
Sent: Tuesday, February 18, 2020 2:53
To: topband at contesting.com <topband at contesting.com>
Subject: Topband: Dacron & varmits

Coupla things. I need new Dacron, some I
have is from the 80's & finally at its
end. I bought some replacement but it's
not what I had. What I had was greenish
and solid braid, tough and incredibly
resistant to nature.

What my new "Dacron" is, is a white center
conductor I assume is Dacron, with a black
braided sleeve/outer-layer which slides
over the center conductor. It's OK but
difficult to work with and certainly not
what I am going to keep using. I contacted
one source who said he sells pure Dacron
rope but never buying from him before,
asked for a photo of an end piece so I
could see if it's what I'm looking for. He
never sent it to me so I'm still looking.

For the moment I need 500', soon, double
that. If there's a known source for the
good stuff in the states, please let me
know.

Now the Rodents, vermin, beasts; I don't
know what it was, but I've been plagued
with wildly varying SWR/antenna problems
often getting a SWR of 9 and then later
the normal SWR of 1.2. I'd get varying SWR
that was fine till say 30W and then the
LP-100A would jump to 9. I'd go out, check
things and find nothing wrong. It's been
driving me nuts. Intermittents suck. I
finally found the little miseries had been
chewing on the ferrite choke on the
control wires to the remote band-switch.
Amazing they only went for the 90 degree
bends, I'm sure they'll go for the
straight length again (did that once 6-7
years back). I have a Green Heron remote
with wireless transmitter ready to go out,
I'll do that in better weather.

Removed the rodent's teething ring &
reattached the wires to the remote box and
all's well, just some touch-up stuff to do
and prepare to put up an 80 sloper. The
tree above the radial plate is rotted, it
holds the current 80 vertical wire and
looks to come down soon, probably on the
plate or remote band-switch. But other
than that, I'm back on the air. Sure
delayed me getting into the contest on
Friday, but still knocked out 62 Q's & 37
countries on 160. Couldn't do much on
Saturday but t'was still fun.

Thanks for any thoughts on the Dacron.

73,

Gary
KA1J
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