On Wed, 21 Mar 2007 17:26:35 -0500, "merlin-7"
wrote:

Some of you may have read my posts on the parallel dipole. I have some
large gauge copper clad wire. It has a memory and is a pain to work with but
it has a breaking point of around 800lbs (I think that's right)
Can you stretch that stuff out tight and take a propane torch to it so that
it will not slinky on you? Without damaging it?

Thanks
KI4ILB

I read your other thread and the replies thus far to this one. I
never had the luxury of a tower, so I installed all mine in trees.
The last time I had one fall, I changed the way I did things a little.
I created a pilot line which was a string that went from the base of
one tree to the base of the other with plenty of room to lower the
middle to the ground. Then I ran the string thru the center
connection for the coax (It wasn't a balun, but had an eyelet on top)
and ran that string thru the eyelet. Then, the ends of the antenna
were pulled up by another piece of string. The tension was lowered
enough to allow for the sway of the trees, and the string going thru
the eyelet was just let very loose. It was loosely tacked to the trunk
of each tree such that any pressure would release it. The antenna
might fall, but I always had a pilot string to pull up a new line for
the antenna.

I always used mason's twine to raise my antennas. needless to say, I
replaced it every year. the antennas were only pulled down by a storm
once and once when I haphazardly tightened the strings too much to
allow for the sway of the trees.

My pilot line idea would have failed to work, not because of storms,
but because of branches. When I moved, the tree limbs had grown into
the wires and I barely was able to recover the antenna when we moved
out. Now I live in an apartment and have no usable trees.

I used #14 copper strand (THHN) and never had a problem with the wire
breaking or having problems with it. i have had as many as 6 wires on
the dipole, but I found that was too much to handle, keep untangled,
etc. I reverted at the end to two 4 wire antennas and later to a 135
foot dipole with twin-lead feed into a tuner. With the latter I could
tune anything.

BTW, I don't know if you use an amp or not, but if not, you can get
away with fairly small wire for the higher bands. If you feel you
need the strength of the longer one (presumably 80 meters), you can
use some #18 wire to hang the other dipoles on. My dipole was a
parallel fan in which all the elements were separated by pieces of PVC
for spacers. To some degree, the more the merrier.

Good luck, let us know how it turns out.

73 for now
Buck, N4PGW
www.lumpuckeroo.com
--
73 for now
Buck, N4PGW
www.lumpuckeroo.com
www.lumpuckeroo.com
N4PGW