wrote in message
oups.com...
Would there be a problem using stainless steel elements in a beam
antenna? Can I solder the lead in to stainless?


Hi:
There are some problems with using stainless steel for elements in a beam.
1) Stainless Steel has much higher loss than aluminum. Remember because of
skin effect the RF current flows only in the outer few thousand of an inch
of the metal. The depth of conduction gets less as the frequency goes higher
so 2m antenna made of stainless would have higher loss than a 6m and 440
antenna would have even more.
2) Stainless Steel is heavy. It means that the antenna would need to be
heavily constructed just to hold up it's own weight.
3) Stainless Steel can be soldered to but not easily. So can aluminum be
soldered but soldering is not the best way to make connections to antennas
even ones made out of copper as the solder doesn't hold up well in the
weather.
Of course there are some antennas that are made of stainless steel because
they need the corrosion resistance or the strength and flexibility of
stainless steel. Mobile whips come to mind for one case, the other would be
an antenna that is used in a corrosive environment like on a buoy at sea.
Of course if you need a antenna made out of a strong light weight corrosion
resistant metal, I know of one that's made from titanium. It's as strong as
steel, almost as light as aluminum and is a good conductor but it's very
costly compared to aluminum.


--
John Passaneau, W3JXP
State College, PA