I've had a really nice 130-foot doublet fed by ladder line hanging
between two trees for the past three years.

It's hung using 3/16" black UV-resistant polyester rope in the trees,
and has a pulley and a 15-pound counterweight (plastic jug of sand)
for tensioning at one end.

It's held up remarkably well over those three years, but I had noticed
that the rope while still fundamentally flexible was kinda
"hardening".

Where it went through the tree branches there was remarkably little
wear over the three years. There was some black fluff where some
chafing had occured but it still was holding up nicely.

But I went ahead and replaced all the rope anyway. With the tennis
ball cannon I actually got the new rope hung a little bit higher than
the old rope.

Just by touch, the new rope feels flexible and supple, and I contrast
that with the old rope that isn't exactly "brittle" but does not feel
nearly as flexible. The new rope felt kinda like a towel just having
been washed and dried; the old rope felt kinda like a towel that had
been used to mop the garage floor and then left lying there to dry.
Maybe the feel was just grime and dirt that the rope had absorbed over
the years?

I fixed a couple of broken ladder line insulators, and inspected the
plastic end insulators too. The UV-rated polycarbonate that I had used
for the insulators seemed to be holding up fine, although it was no
longer crystal clear and had a good amount of grime and haze on it.
Certainly didn't feel "brittle" yet.

I did replace the plastic jug of sand that's used as the
counterweight. I had painted the jug brown and green to kinda blend in
with the trees but even despite the paint layer I was a little worried
about the plastic deteriorating there. On a previous antenna I had
used a 1 gallon plastic milk container to hold the sand and that
didn't even last a year before decaying. I'm using some darkroom
container jugs now, with some extra reinforcement rope through the
handle on the interior, and they seem to hold up OK.

Is three years a typical "good repair" replacement interval for ropes
in trees? I think it probably could've stayed up another 10 to tell
you the truth.

Re-hanging the antenna back up after replacing the rope felt so good.
It is beautiful to see it stretching from treetop to treetop one
hundred feet up.

Tim N3QE

My black UV resistant 'antenna rope' has been up 4 years and still feels
very much like the 500' left on the spool. All is in our Gulf Coast
sunlight except portions from the tree ends down from pulleys to hallard
ties. Supports a G5RV 120' wire antenna. A second supports slopers for
40, 80 & 160. They stretch an inch or two between January (35') and
August (96').

W5MTV



On 8/27/2010 10:54 AM, Tim Shoppa wrote:
I've had a really nice 130-foot doublet fed by ladder line hanging
between two trees for the past three years.

It's hung using 3/16" black UV-resistant polyester rope in the trees,
and has a pulley and a 15-pound counterweight (plastic jug of sand)
for tensioning at one end.

It's held up remarkably well over those three years, but I had noticed
that the rope while still fundamentally flexible was kinda
"hardening".

Where it went through the tree branches there was remarkably little
wear over the three years. There was some black fluff where some
chafing had occured but it still was holding up nicely.

But I went ahead and replaced all the rope anyway. With the tennis
ball cannon I actually got the new rope hung a little bit higher than
the old rope.

Just by touch, the new rope feels flexible and supple, and I contrast
that with the old rope that isn't exactly "brittle" but does not feel
nearly as flexible. The new rope felt kinda like a towel just having
been washed and dried; the old rope felt kinda like a towel that had
been used to mop the garage floor and then left lying there to dry.
Maybe the feel was just grime and dirt that the rope had absorbed over
the years?

I fixed a couple of broken ladder line insulators, and inspected the
plastic end insulators too. The UV-rated polycarbonate that I had used
for the insulators seemed to be holding up fine, although it was no
longer crystal clear and had a good amount of grime and haze on it.
Certainly didn't feel "brittle" yet.

I did replace the plastic jug of sand that's used as the
counterweight. I had painted the jug brown and green to kinda blend in
with the trees but even despite the paint layer I was a little worried
about the plastic deteriorating there. On a previous antenna I had
used a 1 gallon plastic milk container to hold the sand and that
didn't even last a year before decaying. I'm using some darkroom
container jugs now, with some extra reinforcement rope through the
handle on the interior, and they seem to hold up OK.

Is three years a typical "good repair" replacement interval for ropes
in trees? I think it probably could've stayed up another 10 to tell
you the truth.

Re-hanging the antenna back up after replacing the rope felt so good.
It is beautiful to see it stretching from treetop to treetop one
hundred feet up.

Tim N3QE

On 8/27/2010 8:54 AM, Tim Shoppa wrote:
I've had a really nice 130-foot doublet fed by ladder line hanging
between two trees for the past three years.

It's hung using 3/16" black UV-resistant polyester rope in the trees,
and has a pulley and a 15-pound counterweight (plastic jug of sand)
for tensioning at one end.

. . .

But I went ahead and replaced all the rope anyway. With the tennis
ball cannon I actually got the new rope hung a little bit higher than
the old rope.

. . .

For many years I've used a slingshot to put up antennas on Field Day.
Even after just a day or two, they can sometimes be hard to get down,
the twine having dug its way into the tree and gotten gummed up with
sap. After those experiences, I've never been willing to put an antenna
up permanently or semi-permanently by just getting a rope over a branch
-- I've climbed and put a pulley part way up which I've had to replace
every few years as the tree grows out over it.

Of course, larger diameter rope wouldn't cut into the tree as badly as
the heavy twine I use for FD. But I'm sure it would still cut in and get
stuck after even a fairly short period of chafing under tension, and the
tree would grow over and around the rope before long. The result would
be a rope permanently stuck in the tree.

So I'm curious how this ends up working for you. My trees are nearly all
confers -- Douglas Fir, hemlock, sequoia. Are yours hardwood? Are other
folks able to get away with this?

Roy Lewallen, W7EL

On Aug 30, 12:19*am, Roy Lewallen wrote:
For many years I've used a slingshot to put up antennas on Field Day.
Even after just a day or two, they can sometimes be hard to get down,
the twine having dug its way into the tree and gotten gummed up with
sap. After those experiences, I've never been willing to put an antenna
up permanently or semi-permanently by just getting a rope over a branch
-- I've climbed and put a pulley part way up which I've had to replace
every few years as the tree grows out over it.

Of course, larger diameter rope wouldn't cut into the tree as badly as
the heavy twine I use for FD. But I'm sure it would still cut in and get
stuck after even a fairly short period of chafing under tension, and the
tree would grow over and around the rope before long. The result would
be a rope permanently stuck in the tree.

So I'm curious how this ends up working for you. My trees are nearly all
confers -- Douglas Fir, hemlock, sequoia. Are yours hardwood? Are other
folks able to get away with this?

Roy Lewallen, W7EL

Roy -
Let me tell you, I could never be good enough with a slingshot to
get a line over a 120 foot tree! But the tennis ball cannon has
served quite nicely for sending a line over any tree I could find. We
could probably agree to disagree on this - you're good with the
slingshot, and I'm an ace with the cannon.

I find that even in non-conifer trees that it's likely for a 1/4" or
3/16" rope to get stuck after a year or more. If there's a single
crotch with a tight angle in it (e.g. 90 degrees) as opposed to a
number of turns of smaller angles it seems more likely to get stuck. I
don't see how twine could hold up for nearly that long. My
installations are Dacron/polyester rope with pulleys and a
counterweight; the counterweight is IMHO absolutely essential to
having the antenna survive a thunderstorm.

There are also fast-growing pine trees in my neighborhood but they
are "new" and not the giant old-growth trees. In the February
snowstorms (4 feet of snow! Snowpocalypse!) a *lot* of the medium
height pines came down under the weight of the 4 foot snowfall. Non-
evergreen trees also came down but not nearly at the rate that the
conifers did.

Tim N3QE

On 8/30/2010 7:33 AM, Tim Shoppa wrote:

Roy -
Let me tell you, I could never be good enough with a slingshot to
get a line over a 120 foot tree! But the tennis ball cannon has
served quite nicely for sending a line over any tree I could find. We
could probably agree to disagree on this - you're good with the
slingshot, and I'm an ace with the cannon.

I find that even in non-conifer trees that it's likely for a 1/4" or
3/16" rope to get stuck after a year or more. If there's a single
crotch with a tight angle in it (e.g. 90 degrees) as opposed to a
number of turns of smaller angles it seems more likely to get stuck. I
don't see how twine could hold up for nearly that long. My
installations are Dacron/polyester rope with pulleys and a
counterweight; the counterweight is IMHO absolutely essential to
having the antenna survive a thunderstorm.

There are also fast-growing pine trees in my neighborhood but they
are "new" and not the giant old-growth trees. In the February
snowstorms (4 feet of snow! Snowpocalypse!) a *lot* of the medium
height pines came down under the weight of the 4 foot snowfall. Non-
evergreen trees also came down but not nearly at the rate that the
conifers did.

Tim N3QE

I wasn't intending to argue about the best method to put a line over a
tree -- I backpack my portable station as well as camping equipment on
Field Day, which is why my choice of a slingshot and twine. My best
height with it is about 100 feet, but I usually choose my FD sites for
sloping terrain to the east so I don't need much height. My question is
only about the problem of a line getting stuck after a short while. I've
assumed that conifers are more of a problem because of the sticky pitch
and relatively soft wood. What are the experiences others have had with
moderately sized line?

Roy Lewallen, W7EL

On Fri, 27 Aug 2010 08:54:39 -0700 (PDT), Tim Shoppa
wrote:

I've had a really nice 130-foot doublet fed by ladder line hanging
between two trees for the past three years.

It's hung using 3/16" black UV-resistant polyester rope in the trees,
and has a pulley and a 15-pound counterweight (plastic jug of sand)
for tensioning at one end.

It's held up remarkably well over those three years, but I had noticed
that the rope while still fundamentally flexible was kinda
"hardening".

Where it went through the tree branches there was remarkably little
wear over the three years. There was some black fluff where some
chafing had occured but it still was holding up nicely.

But I went ahead and replaced all the rope anyway. With the tennis
ball cannon I actually got the new rope hung a little bit higher than
the old rope.

Just by touch, the new rope feels flexible and supple, and I contrast
that with the old rope that isn't exactly "brittle" but does not feel
nearly as flexible. The new rope felt kinda like a towel just having
been washed and dried; the old rope felt kinda like a towel that had
been used to mop the garage floor and then left lying there to dry.
Maybe the feel was just grime and dirt that the rope had absorbed over
the years?

I fixed a couple of broken ladder line insulators, and inspected the
plastic end insulators too. The UV-rated polycarbonate that I had used
for the insulators seemed to be holding up fine, although it was no
longer crystal clear and had a good amount of grime and haze on it.
Certainly didn't feel "brittle" yet.

I did replace the plastic jug of sand that's used as the
counterweight. I had painted the jug brown and green to kinda blend in
with the trees but even despite the paint layer I was a little worried
about the plastic deteriorating there. On a previous antenna I had
used a 1 gallon plastic milk container to hold the sand and that
didn't even last a year before decaying. I'm using some darkroom
container jugs now, with some extra reinforcement rope through the
handle on the interior, and they seem to hold up OK.

Is three years a typical "good repair" replacement interval for ropes
in trees? I think it probably could've stayed up another 10 to tell
you the truth.

Re-hanging the antenna back up after replacing the rope felt so good.
It is beautiful to see it stretching from treetop to treetop one
hundred feet up.

Tim N3QE


Try this.

When you replace the rope, put up an extra length of rope with nothing
attached to it. I have a rope over the limbs to two trees; trees are
about 160 feet apart, which accommodates a 135-foot doublet fed with
open-wire line.

I installed, over each tree limb, next to the ropes that hold the
antenna, another rope that is simply a long loop -- goes from the
ground to the limb, over the limb, and back down to the ground.
There's no strain on this rope -- actually, two ropes, one over each
limb where the antenna is supported. That way, if the rope holding
the antenna breaks, I already have a spare rope installed -- just use
it to haul up a new antenna support rope -- no need to haul out the
slingshot.

On Aug 30, 4:26*pm, Roy Lewallen wrote:
My question is
only about the problem of a line getting stuck after a short while. I've
assumed that conifers are more of a problem because of the sticky pitch
and relatively soft wood. What are the experiences others have had with
moderately sized line?

I've definitely gotten lines of various sizes stuck in tree crotches
if left unmoved for an extended time.

I have been advised, (but have not take the advice!) that running the
rope through a garden hose, which is sitting in the crotch, is the way
to prevent this from happening.

If I were climbing the tree to get the line up there, that'd be easy
enough to do, but using a cannon to send the line over it's not so
obvious. I'm thinking right now, with my 1/4" rope, that maybe I could
use the rope to pull a hose (not as thick as a garden hose maybe) up
itself.

Tim N3QE

Tim Shoppa wrote:
On Aug 30, 4:26*pm, Roy Lewallen wrote:
My question is
only about the problem of a line getting stuck after a short while. I've
assumed that conifers are more of a problem because of the sticky pitch
and relatively soft wood. What are the experiences others have had with
moderately sized line?

I've definitely gotten lines of various sizes stuck in tree crotches
if left unmoved for an extended time.

I have been advised, (but have not take the advice!) that running the
rope through a garden hose, which is sitting in the crotch, is the way
to prevent this from happening.

If I were climbing the tree to get the line up there, that'd be easy
enough to do, but using a cannon to send the line over it's not so
obvious. I'm thinking right now, with my 1/4" rope, that maybe I could
use the rope to pull a hose (not as thick as a garden hose maybe) up
itself.

Tim N3QE

Apparently, tree climbers use a wide strap called a "cambium saver" to
protect the bark and allow lines to run freely. The following link shows
how it may be positioned in the crotch of a branch, and even retrieved
after use, working only from ground level:

http://www.instructables.com/id/How-...ree-without-cl
imbing-it/


Roy, you may have a chance to try this, sooner than you think!


--

73 from Ian GM3SEK
http://www.ifwtech.co.uk/g3sek