Sorry to bewilder you Dave, but when it comes to LF wire aerials I really am
a complete newbie.
Although I've been licenced for over 40 years now, I have spent all my time
up the "other end" of the spectrum.
So, no I haven't really got 100m rolls of stranded cable kicking around in
my shack. I do have a 6 foot dish, a couple of 30 foot long 2m yagis etc,
etc, so any wire needed for a 136 aerial I will have to go out and buy, and
before I did that I wanted to make sure that I wasn't wasting my money on
the wrong stuff, plus wire shops are few and far between down this neck of
the woods.
The only wire locally (nearest 15 miles) is CB & TV coax, twin and earth
electrical and electric fencing wire, anything else is a 120 mile round trip
to Cork city or arm and a leg postage.
Thanks for the tip about loudspeaker cable, that might be possible locally.
73, Tony, EI8JK
----- Original Message -----
From: "Dave Sergeant" <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Friday, June 25, 2010 9:29 AM
Subject: LF: Re: Antenna wire
Sorry to ask a stupid newbie question but what is the best wire for my
aerial ? I had thought about getting a couple of 100m rolls of cheapo
RG58 and soldering the centre and screen together, or is there a better
way ? Tony, EI8JK
I have been watching this thread with some bewilderment...
If the antenna you are putting up is a form of longwire, dipole
(shortened I guess..), doublet, G5RV etc then it honestly doesn't
matter one bit. Any piece of cheap stranded wire will do, and the only
requirements are mechanical, ie to ensure it stays up in the air.
Normal stranded 19/.76 or whatever will do. Most of us have plenty of
this lying around the shack. There is absolutely no purpose in using
coax, or for that matter heavy electrical cable, as you will struggle
to keep this horizontal and its weight will soon break the guys.
If on the other hand you are talking about resonant loops, then it is
important to keep the dc resistance as low as possible, especially on
136 where the radiation resistance is miniscule. When I used a loop on
136 I used heavy gauge loudspeaker cable, readily available in 100m
rolls, with the pair shorted to make a single conductor. Don't bother
with the 'oxygen free' stuff, that is throwing money down the drain.. I
don't think coax, any sort, will give you as low a dc resistance.
73 Dave G3YMC
http://www.davesergeant.com
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