Friday, March 10, 2023 — We had record high winds blow through Kentucky last weekend, and at some point early this week, a splice I had in my feedline broke. Yesterday I spotted one end of my 300-ohn feedline high up in a tree, apparently deposited there by substantial winds. The other end found the rotating blades of my zero-turn mower.
I don’t think I cut much feedline. One end of the antenna was broken from its anchor point and is laying down across the garage roof. Despite that fact, I was still able to check in to my 80-meter CW traffic net.
After I found my feedline broken, I decided my antenna was finally due for replacement.
The antenna is made of insulated 16 gauge stranded wire, and its been broken and spliced a good many times in the 20 years its been used. Of course, the antenna was actually constructed 20-plus years ago for our local Field Day effort. I installed it with the intention it would be “temporary.” That was 20 years ago, HI HI.
The feedline is basically TV twinlead, which has served me well; however, the conductor size is really small and the wires are fragile once you strip off the insulation.
I’ve ordered 150-feet of stranded copper antenna wire and some 300-ohn window twinlead with 18 guage conductors. It will be a non-resonant doublet, which is exactly what my current antenna is. I can run it 80 through 10 meters, though it works best on the lower frequencies.
The original TV twinlead was part of a spool of it I bought at the Louisville hamfest about 2001.
I haven’t tried to take my antenna down; it may be complicated if the support rope is “grown in” to the branch supporting it. One problem at a time.
If I can drop my antenna successfully,, I may simply replace the feedline and haul it back up. My hope is that I can reuse the support rope if I replace the antenna.
That’s all for this installment …. I’ll update again once my antenna and feedline are back in place.
73 es CUL … de KY4Z …. SK ….(dit dit) …..