Antennas usually are made of aluminum as copper is somewhat heavier
and silver and gold is to expensive. Since lead is now banned in a lot
of places especially with solder you can now buy solder that is doped
with Bismuth !
Now you can't coat your elements with it but if you have a solder
bath you can run copper wire thru it. The bismuth is brittle
but with the underlying copper it is stiff enough to stick it on the
antenna elements. I am assuming that the applied current would travel
along the bismuth coating instead of the aluminum and therefore should
increase gain for antennas that use coupling methods such as the Yagi
tho bandwidth may well suffer some what.
What do you think?

On 10/4/2010 7:31 PM, Art Unwin wrote:
Antennas usually are made of aluminum as copper is somewhat heavier
and silver and gold is to expensive. Since lead is now banned in a lot
of places especially with solder you can now buy solder that is doped
with Bismuth !
Now you can't coat your elements with it but if you have a solder
bath you can run copper wire thru it. The bismuth is brittle
but with the underlying copper it is stiff enough to stick it on the
antenna elements. I am assuming that the applied current would travel
along the bismuth coating instead of the aluminum and therefore should
increase gain for antennas that use coupling methods such as the Yagi
tho bandwidth may well suffer some what.
What do you think?

What do I think? I think I'd rather have a platinum antenna! Sure, it
would be a lot heavier than aluminum, or even copper. Sure, I'd have to
keep it in a bank ... but, I'd still like it!

Regards,
JS

On Mon, 04 Oct 2010 19:31:38 -0700, Art Unwin rearranged some electrons to
say:

Antennas usually are made of aluminum as copper is somewhat heavier and
silver and gold is to expensive. Since lead is now banned in a lot of
places especially with solder you can now buy solder that is doped with
Bismuth !
Now you can't coat your elements with it but if you have a solder bath
you can run copper wire thru it. The bismuth is brittle but with the
underlying copper it is stiff enough to stick it on the antenna
elements. I am assuming that the applied current would travel along the
bismuth coating instead of the aluminum and therefore should increase
gain for antennas that use coupling methods such as the Yagi tho
bandwidth may well suffer some what. What do you think?

Lead free solder is still mostly tin.

Art Unwin wrote in news:1b9f0821-e110-4722-852a-
:

Antennas usually are made of aluminum as copper is somewhat heavier
and silver and gold is to expensive. Since lead is now banned in a lot
of places especially with solder you can now buy solder that is doped
with Bismuth !
Now you can't coat your elements with it but if you have a solder
bath you can run copper wire thru it. The bismuth is brittle
but with the underlying copper it is stiff enough to stick it on the
antenna elements. I am assuming that the applied current would travel
along the bismuth coating instead of the aluminum and therefore should
increase gain for antennas that use coupling methods such as the Yagi
tho bandwidth may well suffer some what.
What do you think?


I am not sure whether you are considering coating the elements with
solder, tin, or bismuth... but they *all* degrade the RF resistance of an
aluminium element.

Nevertheless, hams are suckers for snake oil salesmen. Just look at the
products sold for antenna wire, open wire feed line and whips... so you
might have an opportunity there Art.

Owen

On Oct 5, 2:12*pm, Owen Duffy wrote:
Art Unwin wrote in

Now you can't coat your elements with it but *if you have a solder
bath you can run copper wire thru it. The bismuth is brittle
but with the underlying copper it is stiff enough to stick it on the
antenna elements. I am assuming that the applied current would travel
along the bismuth coating instead of the aluminum and therefore should
increase gain for antennas that use coupling methods such as the Yagi
tho bandwidth may well suffer some what.
What do you think?

I am not sure whether you are considering coating the elements with
solder, tin, or bismuth... but they *all* degrade the RF resistance of an
aluminium element.

Nevertheless, hams are suckers for snake oil salesmen. Just look at the
products sold for antenna wire, open wire feed line and whips... so you
might have an opportunity there Art.

Owen

Hmmmm!
Isn't the idea to get current to flow on the surface
without the skin depth problem? For instance, when you make a Meander
antenna distributed loads are not existent as they cancel out. This
also means that skin depth is non existant as there is no magnetic
field. Thus there is nothing to prevent the current going beyond where
the skin depth is usually situated where it can continue on to flow on
the surface the path of least resistance.
Now the element resistance is of no concern as it is not now part of
the radiation circuit! Instead of two resistances we only have the
one which pertains to radiation, the sole object of a radiator.
Capacitance and inductance does nothing to advance radiation, tho it
is quite useful to have in other areas of science so why fool with it?
Magnetism and polarization only comes into the picture after
propagation is initiated when particles/electrons are ejected with
helical spin and acceleration which generates various movements,
fields etc after the fact.
Remember, for both transmission and receive the only object that can
break up the parts of electrical and magnetic fields together with
time varying current is the Faraday cage, so it is useful to start
with the cage function to get a true story of radiation. A radiator is
only efficient when you can present a flow path for applied current
where the
source becomes totally resistive.
I threw Bismuth in since it is part and parcel of the superconductor
scenario. grin." Super" has many pleasant conoctations for a salesman
to use.

On Oct 5, 8:16*pm, Art Unwin wrote:
On Oct 5, 2:12*pm, Owen Duffy wrote:



Art Unwin wrote in
Now you can't coat your elements with it but *if you have a solder
bath you can run copper wire thru it. The bismuth is brittle
but with the underlying copper it is stiff enough to stick it on the
antenna elements. I am assuming that the applied current would travel
along the bismuth coating instead of the aluminum and therefore should
increase gain for antennas that use coupling methods such as the Yagi
tho bandwidth may well suffer some what.
What do you think?

I am not sure whether you are considering coating the elements with
solder, tin, or bismuth... but they *all* degrade the RF resistance of an
aluminium element.

Nevertheless, hams are suckers for snake oil salesmen. Just look at the
products sold for antenna wire, open wire feed line and whips... so you
might have an opportunity there Art.

Owen

Hmmmm!
Isn't the idea to get current to flow on the surface
without the skin depth problem? For instance, when you make a Meander
antenna distributed loads are not existent as they cancel out. This
also means that skin depth is non existant as there is no magnetic
field. Thus there is nothing to prevent the current going beyond where
the skin depth is usually situated where it can continue on to flow on
the surface the path of least resistance.
Now the element resistance is of no concern as it is not now part of
the radiation circuit! * Instead of two resistances we only have the
one which pertains to radiation, the sole object of a radiator.
Capacitance and inductance does nothing to advance radiation, tho it
is quite useful to have in other areas of science so why fool with it?
Magnetism and polarization only comes into the picture after
propagation is initiated when particles/electrons are ejected with
helical spin and acceleration which generates various movements,
fields etc after the fact.
Remember, for both transmission and receive the only object that can
break up the parts of electrical and magnetic fields together with
time varying current is the Faraday cage, so it is useful to start
with the cage function to get a true story of radiation. A radiator is
only efficient when you can present a flow path for applied current
where the
source becomes totally resistive.
I threw Bismuth in since it is part and parcel of the superconductor
scenario. grin." Super" has many pleasant conoctations for a salesman
to use.

you see art, they just don't understand how the magical levitating
solar neutrinos will jump from the diamagnetic bismuth much more
efficiently than from aluminum... and they never will understand until
you can explain how my ferromagnetic vertical antennas that obviously
can't support a coating of your magical levitating solar neutrinos
could possibly work at all.

On Oct 5, 5:58*pm, K1TTT wrote:
On Oct 5, 8:16*pm, Art Unwin wrote:



On Oct 5, 2:12*pm, Owen Duffy wrote:

Art Unwin wrote in
Now you can't coat your elements with it but *if you have a solder
bath you can run copper wire thru it. The bismuth is brittle
but with the underlying copper it is stiff enough to stick it on the
antenna elements. I am assuming that the applied current would travel
along the bismuth coating instead of the aluminum and therefore should
increase gain for antennas that use coupling methods such as the Yagi
tho bandwidth may well suffer some what.
What do you think?

I am not sure whether you are considering coating the elements with
solder, tin, or bismuth... but they *all* degrade the RF resistance of an
aluminium element.

Nevertheless, hams are suckers for snake oil salesmen. Just look at the
products sold for antenna wire, open wire feed line and whips... so you
might have an opportunity there Art.

Owen

Hmmmm!
Isn't the idea to get current to flow on the surface
without the skin depth problem? For instance, when you make a Meander
antenna distributed loads are not existent as they cancel out. This
also means that skin depth is non existant as there is no magnetic
field. Thus there is nothing to prevent the current going beyond where
the skin depth is usually situated where it can continue on to flow on
the surface the path of least resistance.
Now the element resistance is of no concern as it is not now part of
the radiation circuit! * Instead of two resistances we only have the
one which pertains to radiation, the sole object of a radiator.
Capacitance and inductance does nothing to advance radiation, tho it
is quite useful to have in other areas of science so why fool with it?
Magnetism and polarization only comes into the picture after
propagation is initiated when particles/electrons are ejected with
helical spin and acceleration which generates various movements,
fields etc after the fact.
Remember, for both transmission and receive the only object that can
break up the parts of electrical and magnetic fields together with
time varying current is the Faraday cage, so it is useful to start
with the cage function to get a true story of radiation. A radiator is
only efficient when you can present a flow path for applied current
where the
source becomes totally resistive.
I threw Bismuth in since it is part and parcel of the superconductor
scenario. grin." Super" has many pleasant conoctations for a salesman
to use.

you see art, they just don't understand how the magical levitating
solar neutrinos will jump from the diamagnetic bismuth much more
efficiently than from aluminum... and they never will understand until
you can explain how my ferromagnetic vertical antennas that obviously
can't support a coating of your magical levitating solar neutrinos
could possibly work at all.

Ferromagnetic materials will work but the diamagnetic vectors get a
bit swamped in competition. Any good physics book will explain that
phenomina or alternatively look up wilkpedia.
Didn't you once state that physics was your major?
Your statements appears to put that as a matter of fiction. Why not
explain radiation from your point of view? You can have your posting
removed after a given time in case you embarrase yourself. Tom where
did all these weirdoes come from ?

On Oct 6, 12:04*am, Art Unwin wrote:
On Oct 5, 5:58*pm, K1TTT wrote:



On Oct 5, 8:16*pm, Art Unwin wrote:

On Oct 5, 2:12*pm, Owen Duffy wrote:

Art Unwin wrote in
Now you can't coat your elements with it but *if you have a solder
bath you can run copper wire thru it. The bismuth is brittle
but with the underlying copper it is stiff enough to stick it on the
antenna elements. I am assuming that the applied current would travel
along the bismuth coating instead of the aluminum and therefore should
increase gain for antennas that use coupling methods such as the Yagi
tho bandwidth may well suffer some what.
What do you think?

I am not sure whether you are considering coating the elements with
solder, tin, or bismuth... but they *all* degrade the RF resistance of an
aluminium element.

Nevertheless, hams are suckers for snake oil salesmen. Just look at the
products sold for antenna wire, open wire feed line and whips... so you
might have an opportunity there Art.

Owen

Hmmmm!
Isn't the idea to get current to flow on the surface
without the skin depth problem? For instance, when you make a Meander
antenna distributed loads are not existent as they cancel out. This
also means that skin depth is non existant as there is no magnetic
field. Thus there is nothing to prevent the current going beyond where
the skin depth is usually situated where it can continue on to flow on
the surface the path of least resistance.
Now the element resistance is of no concern as it is not now part of
the radiation circuit! * Instead of two resistances we only have the
one which pertains to radiation, the sole object of a radiator.
Capacitance and inductance does nothing to advance radiation, tho it
is quite useful to have in other areas of science so why fool with it?
Magnetism and polarization only comes into the picture after
propagation is initiated when particles/electrons are ejected with
helical spin and acceleration which generates various movements,
fields etc after the fact.
Remember, for both transmission and receive the only object that can
break up the parts of electrical and magnetic fields together with
time varying current is the Faraday cage, so it is useful to start
with the cage function to get a true story of radiation. A radiator is
only efficient when you can present a flow path for applied current
where the
source becomes totally resistive.
I threw Bismuth in since it is part and parcel of the superconductor
scenario. grin." Super" has many pleasant conoctations for a salesman
to use.

you see art, they just don't understand how the magical levitating
solar neutrinos will jump from the diamagnetic bismuth much more
efficiently than from aluminum... and they never will understand until
you can explain how my ferromagnetic vertical antennas that obviously
can't support a coating of your magical levitating solar neutrinos
could possibly work at all.

Ferromagnetic materials will work but the diamagnetic vectors get a
bit swamped in competition. Any good physics book will explain that
phenomina or alternatively look up wilkpedia.
Didn't you once state that physics was your major?
Your statements appears to put that as a matter of fiction. Why not
explain radiation from your point of view? You can have your posting
removed after a given time in case you embarrase yourself. *Tom where
did all these weirdoes come from ?

no, i'm an ee, not a scientist... my company wanted to change my title
to scientist once, i told them only if i could put 'mad' in front of
it and they let me keep the engineer title. I have to go with the
writings of the masters as mr. b would put it, except i got with the
final set of maxwell's equations as published in books like jackson
and other contemporary writers... which, by the way, do explain that
gauss'es law is a part of maxwell's equations and is a dynamic
equation even without the explicit 't' in it.

On Oct 4, 9:31*pm, Art Unwin wrote:

What do you think?

It's quite well known that the best antennas are built from zircon
encrusted wire, which is trimmed using only zircon encrusted
tweezers.
If you can look at the wire ends on a sunny day and can see
noticeable tweezer glint, you know you have a world class
antenna system worthy of the masters praise and endorsement.

On 10/5/2010 9:35 PM, wrote:

...
It's quite well known that the best antennas are built from zircon
encrusted wire, which is trimmed using only zircon encrusted
tweezers.
If you can look at the wire ends on a sunny day and can see
noticeable tweezer glint, you know you have a world class
antenna system worthy of the masters praise and endorsement.

WOW! Another one of those which you always wondered about, but were too
ashamed to ask about. I just knew there were others like me who must
have wondered about it. Now that you have just tossed it out like so
much fact ... I realize I was silly not to have asked.

We are much better off for having had you share that with the group.

Many thanks,
JS :-)