[TowerTalk] Wire antenna in trees? (Patrick Greenlee) (Kelly Taylor)

[john at kk9a.com]

My question was what is the advantage of Flexweave over THHN. Both are 100% copper, Flexweave has significantly more strands which makes it more flexible but how much flexibility do you need. Is there a corrosion issue with so many strands? Yes THHN is not meant for exterior use, the outer nylon of THHN flakes off in a short time however the PVC coating seems to last for years even in a high UV environment. For decades I have used THHN for rotator wire. I used to use stranded copperweld wire for temporary dipoles. After many years the strands started breaking so I replaced the wire and the newer copperweld and it did the same thing after a year.  Apparently the wire quality was worse than my original and I quit using it.

John KK9A




-----Original Message-----
From: Grant Saviers [mailto:grants2 at pacbell.net] 
Sent: Sunday, August 06, 2017 3:27 PM
To: David Gallatin; john at kk9a.com; towertalk at contesting.com
Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] Wire antenna in trees? (Patrick Greenlee) (Kelly Taylor)

Yes, and after a year or two in the sun the nylon rots and flakes off and changes the RF length a bit with less insulation thickness.

For me the DavisRF polyethylene insulated copperweld stranded steel is the Cadillac solution. It survives coastal environments.  As good but much cheaper is bare aluminum electric fencing wire 9 or 12 1/2 ga, buy it 1k ft to 1/4 mile at a time.  Easy to kink so I use it for antennas and elevated radials that go up and stay up.  1/4 mile of 12 1/2 ga is
$60 at Home Depot.  500# break.

Grant KZ1W

On 8/6/2017 9:30 AM, David Gallatin via TowerTalk wrote:
>      
> THHN is in no way meant for use as exterior antenna wire. The nylon (N) coating is thin and stiff.
>
>
> Sent from my Boost Samsung Galaxy S®4
>
> -------- Original message --------
> From: john at kk9a.com
> Date: 08/06/2017  11:06 AM  (GMT-05:00)
> To: towertalk at contesting.com
> Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] Wire antenna in trees? (Patrick Greenlee) (Kelly
>    Taylor)
>
> What is the advantage of this wire over THHN?  Flex-weave has hundreds 
> of copper strands, each strand is very small diameter.
>
> John KK9A
>
>
> To:	W1TR at yccc.org
> Subject:	Re: [TowerTalk] Wire antenna in trees? (Patrick Greenlee)
> (Kelly Taylor) (Jim Brown)
> From:	Mickey Baker <fishflorida at gmail.com>
> Date:	Sat, 5 Aug 2017 11:39:01 -0400
>
> Here in Florida where high winds are fairly common, I use the Davis 
> FlexWeave insulated wire and, in the case of loops, "float" the wire, 
> allowing it to slide through insulators at the corners. I terminate it 
> at the ends with dipoles and use 5/16" UV stabilized Dacron line 
> through pulleys to weights keeping it taught. When the trees I use as 
> supports sway, the weights go up and down, keeping a standard load on 
> the wire and moving the friction point a bit to avoid single point wear.
>
> It has been up over two years now, gale force winds on a number of 
> occasions and no failures! (Knock wood.)
>
> Tough wire. Same as or similar to Wireman Silky.
>
> 73,
>
> Mickey N4MB
>
> _______________________________________________
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> TowerTalk mailing list
> TowerTalk at contesting.com
> http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/towertalk
> _______________________________________________
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> TowerTalk mailing list
> TowerTalk at contesting.com
> http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/towertalk