[TowerTalk] 80M antenna wire size

[Jim Thomson]

Date: Sun, 5 Jan 2020 13:01:40 -0700
From: David Gilbert <xdavid at cis-broadband.com>
To: towertalk at contesting.com
Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] 80M antenna wire size

<Both diameters are really, really small relative to a wavelength at 
<80m.? After a point the effect of the differences isn't a big deal.

<The model is really simple ... just one straight wire fed in the 
<middle.? If you trust EZNEC+ at all it's pretty difficult to mistrust 
<that model.

<No, I can't explain why you saw an improvement in bandwidth with 10 
<gauge wire on your 80m Inverted-V, but I'd be interested in what "much 
<wider" actually was if you still have the figures available. One thing 
<that does scale fairly linearly with diameter is capacitive coupling to 
<surroundings.? Possibly (just speculating here) there was some resulting 
<loading effect from that for your antenna.

<73,
<Dave?? AB7E

##  dragged  out  old  notes  from  eons  ago.   BW  increased  by 60-70  khz.  80m  band. 
The other  2 hams  in  town  achieved  similar  results. 

##  I still  have a 300M  roll  of  RW-90  left..in 10  gauge.  I  use  it  for  other
applications than  wire  ants.   I  also  have  some  RW-90,  In  green, 6  gauge.

##  I  found  that  10  gauge ,  RW-90,  was  robust  to  handle  snow  +  ice  loading.
When  I  used  to  live  400  miles  further  north,  the  heavy  wet  snow  was  so  thick,
wire  ants   looked like  2  lb  coffee  cans  nose  to  tail.   Like 4-6  inches  in  diam. 
That  would  cause  severe stretching  with  smaller  gauges.    On  160m  full  sized  dipoles
that  some  of  the  folks  had  up  100  ft,  8  gauge  was the  minimum size  used...and  even  that
stretched. 

##  RW-90  was  readily  available,  so  we  used  it. 

Jim  VE7RF