[TowerTalk] How to support a large loop?

[Jim Brown]

On Tue, 21 Sep 2010 19:31:26 -0700, Tom Osborne wrote:

>I'm not sure what flex weave is composed of, but I did see some that a guy 
>here  had in a 160 meter antenna and it rusted.  I think the wire he had 
>must have had some iron in it or something.  Looked kinda nasty. 

That would NOT have been flexweave, but might have been stranded 
copperweld. I HATE copperweld, because it is just awful to work with. Those 
want a bit more strength should consider hard drawn copper. It's easy to 
roll your own by starting with #8 solid copper and stretching it. I've done 
that by tying one end of a long length to a solid anchor like a wood 
telephone pole and the other end to a car bumper, then stretching it VERY 
slowly until it breaks. At that point, it will "sing." As I recall, it 
stretched about 10%. 

Plain ordinary copper is pretty strong though. If you've rigged it well, 
and have decent stretch in one end, it will stand up to quite a lot. I DO 
find, however, that my long high dipoles NOT made with hard drawn copper 
will stretch under tension after a year or two. My 80/40 fan has been up 
about three years. About a year ago, I lowered it and took about a foot or 
so off each end. Another year and I may do it again. That one is rigged so 
that it's easy to do. Others are not. :) 

73, Jim K9YC