Robert11 wrote:
Hi,

Pretty sure I'll probably be able to come up with something that will more
or less work, but was wondering if any of you folks have a real clever
solution for this:

Will be stringing a horiz wire listening only antenna between two trees out
back.
Trees have a fair amount of movement, particularly in the winter.

So, I thought I'd fasten one end securely, and then use the pulley
arrangement, with a hanging weight, like you see in all the pix for this
sort of thing.

But, we get a lot of ice and freezing rain, and I doubt that the pulley
would really function well, if at all in the winter.
But, perhaps ?

Think a large metal ring, with a Dacron rope goint thru (one end to the wire
end) would be better ?
Coat Dacron with Silicone Spray ?

In Colorado I had a 150' balanced fed dipole hung between a blue spruce
and an oak tree, the spruce end fastened and the oak end with a pulley
held up with a garage door spring to the oak, a rope through the pulley
to the ground and tied off to a screw eye in the trunk of the tree. I
used nylon ropes, allowed the dipole to sag a couple feet and never had
a problem with it. The garage door spring was about 4 feet long relaxed
and I could stretch it a foot or so just pulling on it, it was stretched
maybe two feet with the antenna up. The pulley was handy because the
feed line broke off and I was able to lower the feed point to the ground
and make repairs. The antenna would bounce around on windy days, stayed
up with about an inch coating of snow and ice and got me a QSL card from
a Clipperton Island expedition.

W8LNA