[TowerTalk] Stringing dipoles?

[Donald Chester]

When my dipole used to be strung between trees, I found the best solution 
was to the wind damage problem was to use a heavy duty wire (#8 copperweld) 
and a chain of 5 strain insulators to make each end insulator and the middle 
insulator, and to stretch the dipole as tightly as I could pull it.  I never 
had an insulator or the wire to break using this system.  Earlier attempts, 
using pulleys and weights, springs, etc resulted in having to re-errect the 
dipole after each major windstorm.

One thing I recall doing, which was poor practice, was to attach the wire to 
the tree by simply looping it around the tree trunk or a limb.  The tree 
would eventually grow completely over the wire loop, permanently embedding 
it into the tree.  I never had a tree or a limb to die using this method, 
but according to an article in QST several years ago this damages the tree 
and a better solution is to drill a hole through the body of the tree and 
attach the wire using an eye-bolt fixed in place with a nut and washer.  For 
lighter duty applications, a screw-in eye bolt would do.

Don k4kyv

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