Stranded copper and 3/8" rope

[Brian D]

Hey guys, trying to keep the SSB forum rolling along.

Has anyone tried to feed strand copper wire into the core of any type of rope? I have read about it but have never seen any websites that illustrate how to do it. One site said to remove the core of the rope and replace with the stranded copper wire.

FYI, I am still playing around with single wire antennas at my home. Currently using 37 feet of 14-guage but cannot not tune 14300 kHz very well. So far my best length has been 40.8 feet. Tuned 14300 kHz just great with a full 100 watts out (according to the tuner). My next will be 44 feet of 14-guage speaker wire with 25 feet of counterpoise still attached to the 44 feet. In other words, I will not separate the speaker wire, just one length 44 feet and the other 25 feet. This should be fun. Kind of like a GAM but without the glam. LOL

73's
DE KF6BL

 

[Don S/V ILLusion]

I'm not sure what you are trying to accomplish Brian -are you trying to fit the antenna to a specific configuration on the boat or just experimenting?

Have you tried modeling various lengths and configurations?

 

[Brian D]

Yes, I have modeled the length of antennas from 25 feet to 64 feet and compared 1/8 wave intervals based on frequency. But for removing the core of rope and replacing with wire, it is more of an experiment to see how hard it is to do. Basically I am bored. LOL I should be working on my steaming light on my mast and recaulking the ports, but I find myself playing with antennas. LOL

 

[Fred Villiard]

Hi Brian,

I'm not active at the moment, just finally up graded to extra, years ago was very active EME 432 & 1296 Mhz and weak signal low bands. One thing that I found that using untinned stranded wire on some rombic and beverage antennas that we got alot of noise, where we did not on the ones that used single strand copperweld fence wire.

Did alot of experiments to find out why, it turned out that there was signal rectification, due to the copper oxide formed on the untinned strands. Granted the noise was 30 - 40 dB down, but when your chasing weak signals it is a lot.

Since then I always used single strand for wire antennas, just go to the local farm supply and get a coil of electric fence wire.

Just a little about me, been licensed in excess of 50 years both amateur(K3VKY) & first class comercial, past 30+ years working as signal integrity engineer, running an electronic test lab. It gives me access to all sorts of test equipment from dc to 100GHz, plus a complete signal test range.

Fred Villiard K3VKY

 

[Brian D]

Hey Fred, interesting to use electric fence wire. I was giving that a thought and might look into it later. Thanks for the tip. It is inexpensive compared to stranded or solid copper wire. I hear that aluminum does not conduct as well as copper. But all the beams and verticals are made with aluminum so it must work without a hitch.

Now off to different things. Radio is acting up again. Low receive sensitivity and low output power. Has to be something common in both circuit paths. Shucks, always something.

 

[Fred Villiard]

Hi Brian,

For an antenna the differance in conductivity between copper, aluminum, steel, or stainless steel will not make a hill of beans differance, most whips are ss. The only times that conductivity comes into play is when your transmit power gets above a couple of kilowatts.

About the only problem with aluminum wire is you can not solder it easily and it wants to streach under load.

Fred Villiard
K3VKY

 

[Brian D]

Thanks Fred. Then maybe putting fence wire in a rope would keep the wire from stretching and thus losing it tuning.