A good source of 'cheap' wire for antennas is any hamfest flea market
(or possibly any flea market as a matter of fact. You can usually find
partial or full spools of it piled in boxes and being sold on the
cheap. Some companys that use lots of wire will discard it because
they no longer need the color codes on its jackets, or they get rid of
partial spools once they get down to a certain amount left.
Enterprising employees scoop these up and show up at flea markets with
it. It may not be exactly what you would purchase if you were buying
'new' but it will work and in most cases will be just a fraction of
what you would pay for something new to do the job.

Think Spring......antenna construction time is fast aproaching.