Boy-oh-boy, am I ticked off! My End Fed HF antenna (203 feet in length strung thru trees) snapped in the last storm we had. It's about 60+ feet high and was a pain to get up. This is the second damn time it has snapped. Yes, I have a pulley on one end with a counterweight and that has worked fairly well. I normally put extra slack in the wire when I hear a storm is coming but this came on sudden while I was sleeping so...now I am off the air until Spring. I raised the center point of the antenna by feeding the wire through a pulley then pulled it up to 60 feet giving me a slope at each end going down to 10 feet. I fed the antenna wire through the pulley thinking the wire could ride the pulley in winds (tree sway) in conjunction with slack and the counterpoise and that worked pretty but I think it actually sawed through the wire...wire is #14 gauge stranded antenna wire. Long story short, I am looking for ideas...Comments, Suggestions, even thoughts... So far, I have got: 1. Use a counterpoise not at one end but both ends 2. do not feed the antenna wire through a pulley (I guess just through an insulator then connect that to pulley to raise and lower). 3. Copper Clad #12 gauge Steel antenna wire (900+ Ibs break strength, heard its nasty to work with) Anybody ever use steel antenna wire (above item #3)? .
In the High Seas Fishing Fleet we used #10 PhosperBronze 7 Strand Antenna Wire for ALL Open Wire Antennas… This type of wire was designed to survive Mega-Winds, Iced Antennas in high winds, and just about ANY Weather conditions encountered in the North Pacific Ocean, no matter what the Season… It isn’t the cheapest wire, but is as rugged as anything that conducts. It isn’t the most flexable of wires, but I have never seen it stretched, or broken in an unbent run…
I used 1/16" stainless cable for a long time on my 133' EFHW, but the end rope broke and it came down. It had a lot of spots burned into it, too, though I never had any lightning damage to my equipment. In my haste to get back on the air, I put up a complete EFHW using the supplied 18 gauge wire (135'). So far, it has held up for two years through some nasty storms and one cat 1 hurricane, although I put a few feet of slack in when the 'cane came through. Chameleon antenna also sells some tough-as-nails teflon coated wire that is the bomb.
@BTPost "...we used #10 Phosper Bronze 7 Strand Antenna Wire...: Thanks! I was hoping you would kick-in some recommendations. I will look into it today and the costs be damn! LOL! @Tempstar Yeah, I am sure if I had known the winds were going to be that high or I was awake when they came, I would have lowered it down and saved it but it is what it is...and now I need a better mouse trap. "It had a lot of spots burned into it..." That's very strange. Are you putting out a lot of watts/amps? Did you ever figure it out? I never thought to use stainless steel cable so that is another idea, and a good one! Thanks!
look at alpha-delta antennas, Alpha Delta they are very well build, we have the dx-cc wich is now almost 15 years old in has survived many storms here. The only thing is that the antenna on 80 is small and i use an lbg z-100plus tuner on 80, but on all other bands it's performance is very good.
