[TowerTalk] Copper Wire

[ersmar@comcast.net]

Barrie:

      That gauge wire is a waste for shunt-feeding.  If flexible is what you want, you can use #14 insulated stranded wire from Home Despot.  Probably around $20 for a 500 foot spool by now, but plenty flexible.  

     You might have heard/read that thick shunt wires provide better match/greater bandwidth/increased stamina, etc.  Just hang two or more of the thinner wires off some kind of insulating support (PVC or wood come to mind) off the tower and tie the top and bottom ends together to form a shunt wire with a larger effective diameter.  

     OOT (one other thing):  Keep your shunt wire(s) an appreciable distance away from the tower face.  My wires (I use two in parallel) are two feet off the Trylon tower face; I've seen others as much as five feet away.  I'm sure modeling will tell you why this is preferred; I just followed others' examples.

73 de
Gene Smar  AD3F


> About a year ago I went to a local audio store to buy speaker wire.  While 
> there, I spotted a large spool of bare #8 stranded that was very, very flexible.  
> It appeared to be more woven than stranded.
> 
> I'll be shunt feeding my crankup tower soon, and I thought that I'd use that 
> particular wire, since, due to it's limpness, it would just fall to the ground 
> instead of looping about when the tower was down.
> 
> Went back to the store today and was told that they no longer carry that wire.  
> I asked where they got it, and they wouldn't say.
> 
> So, anyone have an idea where I can get this magic "limp" bare copper wire in 
> #8?  
> 
> I've looked on E-Bay and done several Googles.
> 
> TIA, Barrie, W7ALW
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