[TowerTalk] Tougher antenna rope

[Bob Shohet, KQ2M]

Hi Pete,

I experience the same issues here.  One of the things that I do is for higher stress ropes through trees, I switch from 3/16” to 1/4”.  3/16” abrades relatively because only a portion of that diameter needs to abrade before the forces on the rope in a wind will tear it apart.  The 1/4” lasts exponentially longer however since there is effectively 1/3 – 1/2 as much cordage that does not abrade right away so it can stand up the the forces for much longer.  And where I have used 5/16”, the rope stays up forever.

The cost is geometrically higher from 3/16” < 1/4” < 5/16” but then consider the cost of replacing the rope in the future (inflation needs to be taken into account) plus the time and effort needed to reinstall the ropes in the tree.  The 1/4” is well worth it.

What you can also do is what I do now, sling a rope into the tree and attach a locking carabiner to one end of the rope and attach a second rope to the other end of the carabiner.  Then, through the carabiner, run another rope – hold one end on the ground and attach the other end to the antenna wire.

Now you will have rope #1 through the tree and the other attached to the carabiner with rope #2 attached to the other end of the carabiner.  Rope #3 goes through the carabiner – holding one end in your hand and the other attached to the antenna.

Now carefully pull up rope #1 through the tree until you have the carabiner at the desired height and tie off rope #1 and rope #2 to two different places.  The pull rope is not in place permanently.

Next, pull rope #3 through the carabiner until your antenna is at the desired height. and tie of BOTH ends of rope #3 in two different places.

I have skipped a few interim steps for the sake of brevity – but you will easily figure them out.

The end result is that you have a low stress rope and carabiner near the top of the tree at the height you want.  AND, you now have a low stress pull rope for your antenna that goes through the carabiner.

If rope #1 ever gets stuck in the tree there is no problem raising or lowering the antenna through the carabiner!  And it is very easy to adjust the tension from the ground.

I now put up all wire antenna ends using this method.  Although it has cost a few more bucks (a 6 pack of quality locking carabiners cost ~$40) this way, the incredible amount of time and effort saved not fighting with trees and less rope abraded, has been repaid many, many fold.  This is especially important in miserable weather when I can raise, lower and replace a line in about 5 minutes, vs. what used to take up to an hour.

73


Bob  KQ2M


From: N4ZR 
Sent: Tuesday, January 22, 2019 3:26 PM
To: TowerTalk 
Subject: [TowerTalk] Tougher antenna rope

I have a small variety of wire HF antennas that I've placed high in my 
trees with a tennis ball gun.  All great except that the lifetime of the 
rope I've been using (3/16" polypropylene braid with an unbraided core) 
seems quite short, probably because of chafing against moving branches 
near the tops of trees.

Does anyone have suggestions for an alternative, hopefully an economic one?

-- 

73, Pete N4ZR
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