amdx wrote in :

what materials
can you get, and then design around them.

I'll risk looking like a devil's advocate here and suggest good austenitic
stainless steel, like 316, for wires and radials, as a first base.
Reasons:
1. Cheaper than copper.
2. Stronger than copper.
3. If after a bit of stretching, a strong NdFeB magnet shows total
indifference to it when introduced, it permeability is likely low enough to
ignore if you're doing a first, empirical test of an antenna.
4. Very good chemical resistance, eliminating a whole heap of environmental
concerns for its endurance and performance.
5. Very good physical resistance, so no need to cover with insulator, thus no
need to add that into high frequency modelling.
6. Easy to find all over eBay...

I'm sure there are things I didn't think of, and if there is some vitally
specific reason not to do this, you'll likely already know it, but my point
is that if you just want to get something tried out first, economically, it
is likely better this way than starting with copper, for the simple reason
that if it fails, the stainless stuff will do you good service in some other
way, sometime, and wasted copper is less useful, and loses money very fast.