[TowerTalk] guage of wire for 500 watt antenna?

[Bob Shohet, KQ2M]

I would suggest that you buy the wire ( I would use gauge 14 solid copper PVC coated THHN, readily available and reasonably priced at Lowe’s, Home Depot, etc.) and put up the antenna at your qth and see how it fares in Winter cndx. (I use either gauge 14 or gauge 12 for all the wire antennas at my qth).  If the antenna survives then you know that you are ok.  If not, then you may want to go with a heavier gauge.  Although there won’t be ice and snow in Belize, there will be wind, rain and flying debris if it gets windy enough and you want your wire to be strong enough to survive without breaking.  You want the PVC coating on the wire to reduce the effects of abrasion, corrosion by salt spray and to reduce the rain noise on your antenna.

73

Bob  KQ2M

From: Gary Slagel via TowerTalk 
Sent: Saturday, December 02, 2017 5:00 PM
To: towertalk at contesting.com 
Subject: [TowerTalk] guage of wire for 500 watt antenna?


I'm hoping to get to Belize to work ARRL DX CW contest this year and I'd like to take my Elecraft KPA500/KAT500 and operate 500 watts. I will be at a friends house and not next to the ocean so I'm thinking of getting a doublet up in the air as far as I can on a fiberglass pole, feeding with 450 ohm ribbon and tuning it on 10 thru 40 and maybe 80M. 
The fiberglass pole won't take too much weight so I'd like to go as small as I can on the wire.   Any suggestions or input?
Thanks, Gary KT0A