Paul,

besides king's water (aqua regia) also mercury interacts with gold, forming a 
metallic bond.
Regarding king's water: despite the fact that silver is far less noble than 
gold it is immune to king's water.
But now we are far off topic ....

73, Rik  ON7YD - OR7T

________________________________________
Van: [email protected] [[email protected]] 
namens Paul A. Cianciolo [[email protected]]
Verzonden: dinsdag 20 april 2010 20:06
Aan: [email protected]
Onderwerp: LF: Mal's gold contacts

Mal,

Silver will oxidize..   Gold on the other handle is one the most stable of
metals.
As a amateur gold prospector, I can tell that gold can survive thousands of
years under water with out any corrosion.

Very few acids will attack or dissolve gold, the only one I know is Aqua
Regia which is a concentrated mix of Nitric and Hydrochloric acid.

Hence the phrase used here in the USA when questioning the validity of a
idea et.... "Does it pass the acid test?"

BTW Gold has a specific gravity of 19.33  nearly twice that of lead at 11.4

PauLC
W1VLF

Owner of many weird hobbies



-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]]On Behalf Of mal hamilton
Sent: Tuesday, April 20, 2010 1:40 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: LF: EARTH





Rik
I have not investigated gold v silver but high quality low loss plugs/socket
pins are gold plated, if what you say is correct why not silver?
mal/g3kev

----- Original Message -----
From: "Rik Strobbe" <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Monday, April 19, 2010 6:42 PM
Subject: RE: LF: EARTH


Mal,

the conductivity of silver is better than that of copper. But the difference
is marginal, the main advantage is that silver will not oxidate as much as
copper (metal oxides are rather poor conductors). That is why silver plating
makes sense, in particular on very high frequencies (where skin depth is
small, but solid silver wire does not (apart from the fact that is will
break very easy).
However, the conductivity of gold is worse than that of silver and copper, I
don't think that there is any good reason to use gold plated antennas (maybe
except for vanity).

73, Rik  ON7YD

________________________________________
Van: [email protected] [[email protected]]
namens mal hamilton [[email protected]]
Verzonden: maandag 19 april 2010 17:47
Aan: [email protected]
Onderwerp: Re: LF: EARTH

Mike
Silver is ideal and better than copper but in California and possibly Texas
they prefer GOLD, listen to those big W6 and W5 signals. I think W6AM had a
gold plated rhombic around the mid 50's. The heyday of amateur radio before
the appliance operator appeared.
Nice to hear from you

de mal/g3kev

----- Original Message -----
From: "WE0H-Mike" <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Monday, April 19, 2010 4:15 PM
Subject: Re: LF: EARTH


> I run 11,100 feet of radials for my HF and 600m antennas. It works great
but I have lots of wire and lots of time to put them in the ground...hi hi
>
> As Mal said, using a good antenna and a few radials will work good. Use a
poor antenna and many radials and expect a compromise performance.
>
> I have been finding that using silver plated Teflon insulated wire for my
antennas and any coils, that my antennas seem to radiate well. I think the
silver plating has a lower A/C resistance than copper which lowers the wire
losses.
>
> Mike
> WE0H
> WD2XSH/16
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Mobile on  my BlackBerry
>