[TowerTalk] Ground radials

[Gene Smar]

Jim:

     My comments embedded in your message, below.

73 de
Gene Smar  AD3F

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jim Lux" <jimlux at earthlink.net>
To: "Gene Smar" <ersmar at comcast.net>; "Tom Champlin" <w0hh at msn.com>;
"Towertalk" <towertalk at contesting.com>
Sent: Tuesday, December 23, 2003 12:32 AM
Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] Ground radials


>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Gene Smar" <ersmar at comcast.net>
> To: "Tom Champlin" <w0hh at msn.com>; "Towertalk" <towertalk at contesting.com>
> Sent: Monday, December 22, 2003 5:37 PM
> Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] Ground radials
>
>
> > Tom:
> >
> >      Electrically it doesn't make a difference whether the wire's
> insulated
> > or not.  Mechanically, the insulation gives you a significant degree of
> > protection against corrosion and eventual disappearance of the radial
> wire.
>
> Purely speculative question here.. does insulated wire suck up water by
> capillary action more or less. For stranded, it's probably a wash, but,
off
> hand, I'd think solid better than stranded, either way (corroded/oxidized
> stranded is really evil, RF wise..)

     I never thought about it, and I haven't observed any degradation in
performance of the solid vs stranded wires in my radial field. (not that I'd
be able to tell anyway.)

>
>
> Now that I think about it, what about aluminum wire?  (titanium's another
> possibility, real corrosion resistant, and you might be able to find it
> surplus, but the resistivity's not all that hot).
>
> Since the function of the radial is really to improve the soil
conductivity,
> and anything metal is better than the soil, the difference between
aluminum
> and copper might be negligible and, for that matter, steel might be good
> enough (although it might rust away almost instantly.. but at least the
iron
> ions will stay!)

     You can't solder to aluminum (well, I can't) so copper is what I use.

>
> But.. AWG 12 and AWG 14 solid house wire is really cheap because of the
huge
> volumes (especially if you watch the copper markets and buy when copper
> prices are low..)

     I buy it when I need it.  Besides, my radial wire is scrap wire (see
below.)   But Home Despot sells 500 foot rolls of #14 for about $13 around
here.  That's less than 3 cents per foot.  My average price for the scrap
was less than two cents a foot.

>
> Magnet wire is also cheap in large volumes. Call up motor rewinders to buy
> it.

     I bought most of my radial wire from a local store.  It was scrap
spools of stuff that they had lying around when I visited them for other
purchases.

>
>
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