[TowerTalk] WD-1A as control cable

[Jeff Blaine]

Tony, I used WD1 for 4-square control wire out here for years when I had 
control wires laying on the top of the ground.  It's incredibly tough 
and stood up with a bunch of other el-cheap-o wire I had picked up died 
fast due to UV degradation causing insulation failure.

The wire has some voltage drop but that's easy enough to fix if you have 
a monster run - I juiced my 400 & 800' runs with 15V on the controller 
end at the shack by default and never had an issue out there in the 
boonies.  I did double up the conductors for each instead of splitting 
them off individually (meaning a "run" would give me 2 net wires to use, 
not 4) but that was out of paranoia that I would cut or damage the wire 
laying on the ground.  But a guy should NEVER bury just enough control 
wires because you never know what may happen.  Especially with wire that 
comes literally "by the mile."

Not sure what "long term" is in your context.  My "temporary" use went 
from 2012 to 2017 and the only problems I had with that stuff is when I 
got it hung up in my mower deck.

Worked great out here in the boonies when finding money for "good stuff" 
was just not in cards.

73/jeff/ac0c
alpha-charlie-zero-charlie
www.ac0c.com


On 4/14/20 10:37 AM, Gedas wrote:
> We used to work with the stuff back when we certification tested 
> Sincgars R/T's etc. There are at least 4 variants of "WD-1" wire that 
> I was aware of. There may be many more.
>
> WD-1/TT, WD-1A/TT, WD-36/TT, WD-14/TT. As I recall the WD-1/TT was 
> just a "twisted pair" molded insulation with each wire made up of 3 
> steel & 4 copper wires, the WD-1A/TT was a "glued-pair"with each wire 
> made up of 3 steel & 4 copper wires, and the WD-36/TT was also a 
> "glued pair" of wires with each wire being just a pair of steel wires. 
> WD-14/TT was the same as WD-1/TT but had a woven cloth covering. It 
> was never designed to be deployed and left out there for very long. 
> The DC resistance spec for WD-1/TT was that it had to be less than 46 
> ohms/1000'.
>
> Gedas, W8BYA EN70JT
>
> Gallery at http://w8bya.com
> Light travels faster than sound....
> This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.
>
> On 4/13/2020 6:51 PM, tony.kaz--- via TowerTalk wrote:
>> Has anyone ever measured the resistance of WD-1A cable? If so it will 
>> save
>> the trouble of pulling some off a spool to test.
>>
>> Also the plan would be to use to control 12V to relays at the 
>> feedpoints of
>> my 80M 4-Sq. The cable would be buried except for the vertical 
>> portion as
>> the feedpoints are elevated. Based on previous experience with WD-1A 
>> outside
>> I saw rusting of the wires. Is this wire typically only used for 
>> temporary
>> use or have folks had success with using something like liquid tape 
>> to seal
>> the ends where terminals were soldered?
>>
>> My backup plan is to buy a 500' spool of Southwire Landscape wire 16/2
>> stranded copper.
>>
>> 73 and stay safe
>>
>> N2TK, Tony
>>
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