[TowerTalk] XHHW wire

[Edward Mccann]

The QST article was woefully short on technical detail, in my opinion, and I couldn’t believe it made the cover. There is little technology being addressed in the magazine. 

Sad state of affairs.

Ed McCann
AG6CX

Sent from my iPhone

> On Feb 24, 2020, at 5:46 AM, Rob Atkinson <ranchorobbo at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> I have a few problems with this wire.  My experience with aluminum is
> that it is not worth the trouble integrating it into the rest of the
> antenna system when it comes to bonding it to other metals.  I
> appreciate the light weight and lower cost but aluminum has another
> undesirable property:  It cold flows so clamps on it eventually come
> loose and then you have resistance and heat.  This is why aluminum
> house wire which was tried in the 1960s came to a quick end--too many
> cold flows, heat and fires.   I hope it isn't coming back for that
> purpose.
> 
> I have my 200 amp service drop to my home using aluminum.  I don't
> like it but I can't make the power company use copper.  Every few
> years I check the lugs on the main breaker to make sure they are still
> tight.   This is one area where an IR camera would come in handy.   It
> WILL cold flow eventually and you'll know it when your lights flicker
> or dim briefly when a big load like A/C comes on.
> 
> I was dismayed to see that QST ran an article by some sort of RF
> expert on how to construct open wire feedline using aluminum AWG 8 or
> maybe it was 6, stranded wire.  Ridiculous overkill for ham power, and
> he spliced line sections together using what appeared to be steel
> clamps.  Those clamps will lose their grip in a few years and he'll
> have problems, besides the use of steel for RF.   None of this came up
> in the article.    Then there was the line Z due to the spacing and
> diameter of AWG 8 cable but that's outside the focus here.
> 
> 73
> Rob
> K5UJ
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