In article ,
Vinnie S. wrote:

Can I use inulated 14 AWG wire and not use the fan method? Can I run them tied
together?

The closer the wires are together, the greater the amount of
electrical coupling between them. As the amount of coupling
increases, the wires' ability to behave independently decreases... one
effect is that the useful SWR bandwidth of the wires becomes narrower.
The presence or absence of insulation won't have too much effect on
this change... some, but not a lot.

Eventually, if the wires are close enough together, they'll tend to
behave pretty much like one wire (the longest one) which is "fatter"
near the feedpoint, and you'll lose the ability to tune the
higher-frequency bands properly.

A separation of 4-5" inches seems to work pretty well. There are
plans in one of the ARRL handbooks which show a "fan" dipole made from
300-ohm twinlead, with one wire cut off short (and a second 300-ohm
section with two even shorter wires hung an inch or so below). I'd
expect this to have a narrower useful bandwidth on the shorter-wire
bands than one with a 4" separation.

I've even heard of people making these sort of fan dipoles out of
computer-type ribbon cable, in which the wires are only about a tenth
of an inch apart! I have no personal experience with this particular
version and don't how well this actually works in practice, but I have
a feeling it might be difficult to get to tune properly.

I suppose you could try making one with insulated wire, with the wires
tied together every few feet, and the shorter (lower) wires being tied
in loosely so that they sag downwards a few inches in between the
ties. This might separate 'em enough to allow for independent tuning.

If you can use insulators, do so, is my advice. You can make
insulators very cheaply from short lengths of 1/2" PVC irrigation
tubing.

--
Dave Platt AE6EO
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