John, N9JG wrote:
The last time I installed a wire antenna for 80 meters was in the mid 70s.
At that time the wire of choice was #14 (or perhaps #12) solid enameled
copperweld (now called copper clad) wire. Yes, the wire was kinky, fussy to
install, but it had high mechanical strength, excellent electrical
properties, and it lasted for many years.


Any advice, recommendations, or links to wire sources will be greatly
appreciated.

John, N9JG


Home Depot, Lowes, or any other local Borg...
I've been using ordinary, stranded 12 guage THHN house wiring. It's
insulated (yes, you do need to adjust length a bit for the insulation),
comes in a variety of colors (I prefer black or blue) and is strong
enough for most any antenna you'll likely put up. With fixed corner
posts, I ran a 800 foot loop through and over trees without any
problems, and have run at least one 160M half wave without any issues.
Note that I'm not in a heavy icing area, as my temperatures rarely get
even close to freezing where I live now (Hawaii), but many others have
also used stranded household wire to good effect. If your antenna isn't
in the clear, the insulation helps. Given a tree on one end, I've used
a pulley at the top with a rope connected to the antenna end, with a
bucket of sand on the other end. The bucket moves up and down as the
tree moves, and the last time I used this approach (in Washington state)
the rope lasted 5 or 6 years before I needed to replace it.

Good Luck,
--Rick AH7H

I thank everyone for their comments and suggestions. I will probably go with
#14 copper clad steel.

It's worth pointing out that copperweld, in addition to being superior
to house wiring, is CHEAPER than solid copper at the moment.

Dan

wrote:

It's worth pointing out that copperweld, in addition to being superior
to house wiring, is CHEAPER than solid copper at the moment.

Dan

Superior is a judgement call, and if you like it better, than it's
superior for you. For myself, I prefer having the insulation on the
THHN wire I use, as I can't always keep the wire "in the clear". Also,
one of the reasons I gave up on copperweld was it's stiffnes and
propensity to kink, making a weak point that invariably failed in
relatively short time.

Of course, living in an area with significant acid rain (living on the
side of a volcano does have some drawbacks), it doesn't take much of an
abrasion to compromise the copper coating on copperweld, and once that
happens, rust soon follows, and down comes the antenna. (The PH of our
rain here is around 3.5... Neutral is about PH 7 or 7.5. Just about
anything that can will either rust or corrode here. Even tools in a
closed cabinet will rust if you don't take them out and oil them fairly
often, something nearly unheard of in most of the US.

Whatever you use, the main goal is to get wire in the air and keep it
there, so you can talk to the world. Whatever methond you use is up to
personal preference, and that's one of the things that makes this hobby
interesting.

Good Luck!
-- Rick AH7H