I am getting back to the HF bands after some 20 years 'rest'. What is the
best type of wire to use for long wire antennas? The wire will be under some
tension to keep it above some local trees!

-----------------------------------------
You have hobbies. I have hobbies.
Chances are I have one that you don't.
I'll leave it up to you to decide!
http://www.flightsimulatorandhobbies.com/
-----------------------------------------

"Best" has a number of different definitions depending on the particular
situation. If you want wire that'll never stretch or break and will take
a lot of tension, Copperweld is hard to beat. It's springy and a
nuisance to work with, though.

Roy Lewallen, W7EL

JERD wrote:
I am getting back to the HF bands after some 20 years 'rest'. What is the
best type of wire to use for long wire antennas? The wire will be under some
tension to keep it above some local trees!

-----------------------------------------
You have hobbies. I have hobbies.
Chances are I have one that you don't.
I'll leave it up to you to decide!
http://www.flightsimulatorandhobbies.com/
-----------------------------------------

Since '70, I've had good luck with stranded hard-drawn copper for up to
lambda/2 dipole on 80m (no experience with longer spans). The latest stuff
I've been using is 12ga (268 strand) hard-drawn for a single wire 80m dipole
and now a cage dipole for 80m using 14ga from Davis RF
(http://www.davisrf.com/). They also offer porcelain compression
insulators, so a broken insulator won't bring your antenna down (and leave
the end of the wire dangling in the trees). Nice folks to deal with, too.
Bryan WA7PRC

Roy Lewallen wrote:
"Best" has a number of different definitions depending on the particular
situation. If you want wire that'll never stretch or break and will take
a lot of tension, Copperweld is hard to beat. It's springy and a
nuisance to work with, though.

Roy Lewallen, W7EL

JERD wrote:
I am getting back to the HF bands after some 20 years 'rest'. What is
the
best type of wire to use for long wire antennas? The wire will be under
some
tension to keep it above some local trees!

Roy Lewallen wrote:
"Best" has a number of different definitions depending on the particular
situation. If you want wire that'll never stretch or break and will take
a lot of tension, Copperweld is hard to beat. It's springy and a
nuisance to work with, though.

In this day of high copper prices, my two favorite antenna wires are
free wire and cheap wire. We had a fellow near here who, until the past
year or so, was selling 500' spools of insulated #14 or #12 for five or
six bucks per spool. I ran better than ten spools for my 80 and 160m
inverted L's and stocked up for inverted vee wire.

A less expensive alternative might be the hardened aluminum fence wire
in the larger diameters, allowing for some means of preventing the
corrosion from copper to aluminum at the feedpoint.

Dave Heil K8MN

On Nov 16, 2:01 am, Roy Lewallen wrote:
"Best" has a number of different definitions depending on the particular
situation. If you want wire that'll never stretch or break and will take
a lot of tension, Copperweld is hard to beat. It's springy and a
nuisance to work with, though.

There are many sources of non-Copperweld-brand stranded copper-clad-
steel wires from the ham retailers, e.g. www.therfc.com, www.thewireman.com,
etc. It's a joy to use and handles more like aircraft cable than solid
springs.

Some insist it has to really be Copperweld brand to be good but my
standards aren't so high. Besides Copperweld-brand stuff seems to be
conspicuously out of stock at all the ham retail shops, and when I
inquire about it they tell me that they don't ever expect to get it
again.

Tim.

"Tim Shoppa" wrote in message
...
Some insist it has to really be Copperweld brand to be good but my
standards aren't so high. Besides Copperweld-brand stuff seems to be
conspicuously out of stock at all the ham retail shops, and when I
inquire about it they tell me that they don't ever expect to get it
again.

Tim.

You should be able to get it he

http://thewireman.com/antennap.html

I just use what I can find. Usually some # 14 or #12 insulated stranded
wire. Mostly free from where I work. When some of the older construction
is removed there is lots of wire that would be thrown away that has been in
conduit in the building for 10 to 30 years.

Once it is up in the air there is no best wire (as long as it is copper) as
far as the signal goes. If you could measuer to the tenth of a db, there
may be. The main thing is will it stand up to the weather.

Tim Shoppa wrote:
. . .
Some insist it has to really be Copperweld brand to be good but my
standards aren't so high. Besides Copperweld-brand stuff seems to be
conspicuously out of stock at all the ham retail shops, and when I
inquire about it they tell me that they don't ever expect to get it
again.

My recommendation of Copperweld by brand was made only because it's a
known quantity. I'm sure there are other brands which are just as good.
But I'll bet there are others with a skimpy copper plating, or cladding
that might be thin enough to allow current in the steel, particularly on
the lower bands.

You need to be more cautious using stranded copper clad steel wire than
solid wire. Even though the copper might be equally thick in terms of
wire diameter, smaller diameter individual conductor strands mean a
thinner coating in absolute terms. The only time I've actually had a
problem was with RG-174 sized coax, where the loss was much higher than
expected on the lower bands because of the very small center conductor
strands, and I think the conductor was genuine Copperweld. But a
combination of small strands and less-than-Copperweld thickness might be
enough to result in considerable extra loss in some antenna sized wire.

The great majority of amateurs wouldn't notice the few dB of extra loss,
and in fact are likely to think highly of the extra bandwidth the loss
would bring. (One was presented in QST years ago, the author apparently
unaware that the secret of the broad bandwidth was the loss of the
chosen wire type.) So this phenomenon isn't necessarily bad. But some
folks might benefit from knowing about it.

Roy Lewallen, W7EL

Roy Lewallen wrote:
"My recommendation of Copperweld by brand was made only because it is a
known quantity."

I`ll second that! Copperweld was the only manufacturer or vendor my
college allowed to present a tutorial on their product. It was an annual
affair. The faculty obviously thought very highly of the product or was
impressed by the quality of the meals they bought.

I`ve used literally tons of Copperweld wire of many sizes and twists and
attest to its durability in antennas and transmission lines. We put it
together with Nicopress compression fittings.

Best regards, Richard Harrison, KB5WZI

In article
disregard

"JERD" wrote in
:

I am getting back to the HF bands after some 20 years 'rest'. What is
the best type of wire to use for long wire antennas? The wire will be
under some tension to keep it above some local trees!


You might find the article 'Sufficient sag for wire antenna spans for
wind survival' at http://www.vk1od.net/rigging/sag.htm of interest. You
might wonder why annealed copper in almost any form (enamelled, or PVC
insulated, especially PVC insulated) is so popular.

I endorse Roy's support for Copperweld, but you will not find it readily
available in Oz. There are a few suppliers of HDC (ATN and Discount
Cables come to mind). Stainless steel (2mm dia) is used in some of the
commercial antennas (eg Bushcomm), but you need to consider whether the
additional loss is an issue for the specific antenna.

BTW, MIG wire (copper plated steel wire) is not Copperweld, Copperweld
has a substantial copper thickness (eg 30%, depending on the grade) which
is chosen to be at least several skin depths in thickess so that the RF
resistance is similar to copper, but the strength comes largely from the
copper core. Hams promoting 0.8mm MIG wire (as they do here) are on the
wrong track, it is a grossly inferior product, you are much better off
with galvanised fence wire than MIG wire.

Speaking of which, heavy galvanised steel fence wire (say 1.6mm for
shorter spans) is not all that poor, but beware of newer fence wires
which have thinner zinc, or worse the polymer coated wires with have an
extremely thin layer of ZAl covered by the polymer coating. Though any of
these are going to be better than rusty MIG wire.

Owen