[TowerTalk] Soldering flex-weave

[Dan Kovatch]

Martin, I just went through this with trying to repair my 160 L. The wire 
has been up for years and actually I was fixing a fix I did last year that 
had failed. I found (via Google) that a combination of salt and white 
vinegar (although using balsamic may get you more Is in the log!!!) works to 
clean the wire very well. I soaked mine for about 30 minutes then let it dry 
and used non-acid flux, I did not use it on flex weave but my wire has about 
8 strands or so. It works pretty well and better than any mechanical method 
I've used before.

Hope this helps!
YMMV

Dan W8CAR
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Martin Ewing AA6E" <aa6e at ewing.homedns.org>
To: "Towertalk List" <towertalk at contesting.com>
Sent: Friday, December 28, 2007 4:07 PM
Subject: [TowerTalk] Soldering flex-weave


> I've got some dipoles built from Flex-weave wire -- stranded with
> zillions of small conductors.  The wire is indeed very flexible, but I
> need to shorten one of my antennas.  The problem is that the copper is
> weathered pretty well by now, and it can't be soldered as it is.   (This
> is the downside of stranded antenna wire -- it turns into Litz wire
> after a while, you can't be sure the current divides equally, etc.)
>
> So the Big Question:  What's a simple, efficient way to clean the oxide
> off finely stranded wire in the field?  I've tried abrasive methods
> (sandpaper, knife blades), but they don't do well.  Do you know any good
> tricks?
>
> If nothing better comes along, I will try acid.  That should be
> effective, but it's not user friendly.
>
> TIA / 73 / New Year's greetings,
>
> Martin AA6E
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