Ahh, copper … the lifeblood of the cheapskate HF antenna builder!
What's cheaper and simpler than a dipole? Very little, though I'm always a little bewildered at the number of hams (new and old) who shell out money for a simple dipole.
No, no, I'm not going to launch one of my nostalgic rants about “the good old days” of Amateur Radio. Hell, I've only been licensed 20-some years now, I don't think that qualifies anyone for the rank of “Old Timer”, particulalry since the “good old days” generally refers to benchmarks that existed before I was licensed (these benchmarks depend on the Old Timer, of course).
The list may include having tested before an FCC examiner; remembering when dials were marked in “cycles” rather than “Hertz”; the days when Japanese manufactured ham gear was an oddity rather than the norm; still being mad at the ARRL for incentive licensing, and; the days before the League “dumbed down” Amateur Radio. In fact, when in QSO with some OT's I don't always reveal that I was licensed during the Novice Enhancement era because for some, that was the “end of Amateur Radio as we know it.” (Umm, yeah, right!).
Back to antennas … I guess hams have always opted to buy pre-built wire antennas. My old QSTs show plenty of ads for them. I particularly like looking at the early yagi designs, which in many cases were monstrously heavy creations of wood and aluminum. Some early homebrew yagis used a wood ladder as the boom!
But we're talking dipoles here, not yagis. With the price of copper setting records, a simple 80 meter doublet costs a good deal more than it used to. The dipole I have up now is made with some scavenged insulated wire from 20 years ago, and its done fine the three years its been up. But my standard antenna wire is the 70-foot lengths of copper antenna wire sold by Radio Shack.
This 14 guage wire is hardened copper; it doesn't stretch easily and its very strong. I've never had a problem with the wire, its usually been limbs breaking and falling on it. The last R/S wire dipole I had up was victim to my water maple, which was my antenna's former end support. A big wind storm split the entire top out of the tree. The only thing left is a lower fork. That's when I had to move to an inverted vee configuration.
The R/S wire is plain good stuff — and over the years its been readily availble, even here in Bardstown. At least until recently.
With the frequent antenna projects by a number of us, the supply dried up and was not restocked. Then I found out the antenna wire was being dropped entirely from the R/S catalog. Ack!!
Some folks are using wire from Lowe's, and I suspect that works ok, but the price, yes the price has skyrocketed. Being a cheapskate, I recently started scouting for the old R/S wire on eBay. I wasn't disappointed.
I've been able to buy some as cheap as $1 for a roll. Today I received 5 rolls of the wire I bought from a supplier who apparently sells R/S. discontinued items. Given what I usually paid ($8-10 a roll) for the wire prior to the price hikes, I was indeed fortunate to load up on some for less than $6 a roll.
I know the Wire Man has plenty of wire, as do other suppliers. but I don't particularly like working with copper clad steel antenna wire. I've used it before and for the lengths I'm using, the R/S. copper wire does fine.
The beauty of the R/S wire is that two rolls of it are nearly an instant 80 meter dipole. A center insulator, some TV twin lead and bingo — instant all-band antenna. Or if you wish, cut a roll of wire in the middle, install an insulator and feedline, and you're good to go on 40. Of course, if you want resonance, you'll have to do some measuring, but for a multi-band antenna, a non-resonant antenna works fine. Simple is good, but cheap and simple is superb.
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