I've been thinking about using either 14 or 17 gauge aluminum electric fence wire to make an 80m horizontal loop, but I was curious how well the wire would handle power above 100 watts.  At this point I'll almost certainly use the 14 gauge wire, if for nothing else because of the mechanical strength of the wire.

I can't imagine there would be any problem running 100 watts through it, but I'm curious if I'd have any issues using my AL-80B with it?

Thanks,
Mike

Great to hear--thanks!  I have a couple other questions, but I'll start a different thread so I don't hijack this one any further than I already have.   

Mike

I'm looking into using aluminum fence wire for a horizontal loop too, and I was curious if icing or even rain might have any effects on the uninsulated wire.  Any odd behavior I should look out for?

Thanks,
Mike

I'd be curious to see where those CATV drops are grounded to, and possibly try grounding to the same point.

Where you say it's fairly close to the ground, that immediately throws a red flag for mw.  When I raised my own OCF dipole (one of the ones offered on Ebay by "Maple Leaf Studios", 4:1 current balun, 1/3 feedpoint) by about 20 feet at the apex, and about 10 feet at the ends of the legs, it had a dramatic difference in SWR.  Something else that seems critical is the leg angle--how steep the "V" angle is.  I've found with mine that best SWR is at about 120 degrees.  When I lifted the legs to flatten out the "V" it raised SWR on most of the bands.

As a side note, the narrow bandwidth at the various points of resonance are why it was important to me to use a low loss feedline (I used LMR-400).  I've thought about using parallel conductors for the legs, or going further and making it a OCF cage dipole in order to flatten out the SWR curve, but I haven't really found the need to do that yet.

I'm a very new ham, and this is my first antenna so take what I say with a grain of salt.  I just thought I'd throw it out there though since I've been having fun experimenting with it quite a bit lately.

Mike

I'm new to ham radio, only having my license for a couple years now, but coming from an IT (computers and networking) background I'm actually not at all surprised.  IT is also highly technical in nature and it used to astound me how many people claiming to be "system engineers" or some other lofty sounding title are so averse to cracking a book and looking something up.  God forbid they might actually have to read a book in order to learn something completely new. 

It's sad to see this same mindset exists in the ham radio world too, but not all that surprising. 

Mike

Perfect--that's exactly what I was looking for!

Thanks!
Mike

I'm buying a used AL-80B which is currently wired for 220v power, and I'll be rewiring it for 110v.  I can't seem to find anything about the fuse I need to get though.  I understand that I need to replace the 10 amp fuse with a 20 amp fuse, but the AL-80B manual doesn't give any other specs on fuses besides amp rating and that they must be "fast-blow" type.  Are the fuses used in these amps really that generic?

When I get the amp I plan on pulling out the existing fuse and looking it over for manufacturer/model info, but I thought I'd post the question here since I don't really expect to find any info on the fuse.

Can anyone point me to a source for the correct fuse?

Thanks,
Mike

I don't see how you can make that determination.  Every year we have trees falling on distribution lines, knocking them down in some cases.  Granted, his location of Torrence, California is very different than mine here in Anchorage, Alaska.  What happens if some drunk driver slams a big SUV at high speed into one of the power poles, knocking it down onto his antenna wire?

I agree that it would probably be a very unusual set of circumstances that would result in the worst-case scenario, but we take safety precautions based on dangerous potential events, not common benign ones.

I was going to bring up telephone poles as well.  Any reason why you wouldn't want to get some surplus telephone poles and use them?  It would be a little more expensive to sink them 5 ft. deep vs. treated lumber, but you'd get a little more height out of it.  They'd be a lot more durable too, and easier to use for other purposes (exterior lighting, etc.).

Mike

In the early 1980s a friend had a old tube SW radio and some wire strung out his window, and we used to listen to Radio Moscow pretty regularly.  We sent in a reception report, but instead of a QSL card we got what can only be described as a propaganda package.  Lots of pamphlets describing the bountiful agricultural/industrial output of the glorious workers' paradise and other garbage.  We loved going through it and thought it was hilarious too.  I think we were about 12 or 13.

Interestingly, what I remember most was that the package had obviously already been opened and rooted through by someone.  Shouldn't have been much of a surprise though at that time.  I was just recently joking with that friend that we should do FOIA requests for copies of our FBI files.   

The references to cardiac surgery are funny and all, but speaking as a new ham myself it was very handy to be able to post quick questions to forums like this one while I was getting my feet wet.  Once I was on the air my interest skyrocketed and I began buying reference books left and right (don't forget your local libraries as well!).  However for simple questions, forums like these are gold for the new ham.

That said, one of the best references for me when I was building up my fixed 2m station was repeater-builder.com.  While lots of stuff isn't directly applicable to the individual ham's setup, the emphasis on buying the best quality coax you can afford is very applicable, and also very relevant to this thread. 

So Julie, to answer your question I would have to go along with VE3FMC's recommendation for LMR-400.  I've also been very happy with DX Engineering's (http://www.dxengineering.com) DXE-400MAX.  It's got very similar specs to LMR-400 ultra flex, and costs $0.82/ft. in bulk so it's pretty economical too.

Mike

I just wanted to post a followup to this one.  It took me a while but I've got everything figured out, and I feel a little stupid about some things.  For example, I haven't experienced any change in SWR when tapping/knocking on the tuner case as I mentioned earlier--the only thing I can think of to account for what I saw before was that I probably had the transceiver in USB/LSB, and the mic was picking up the sound of the tapping.

Also, with regard to the high SWR on 75m, when tuned up with the amp the SWR is down to about 1.5:1, so that appears to work like I was hoping.

I'm pretty excited now that I have my amp running--I seem to be pushing about 400 watts using this old Dentron GLA-1000B, and I'm very happy with that.  My goal was to be able to turn down my radio and still put out at least 150 watts, and it's doing that with no problem at all.

Thanks again!
Mike

What about the three radials on the X-50?  Mounted very close to the HF beam, they could be just inches away and they're fairly horizontal--wouldn't that be an issue?

I borrowed an antenna analyzer from a friend and I think this Daiwa tuner has a problem.  First I hooked up the analyzer directly to the feedline, and the results were about as I expected.  However, when I placed the Daiwa tuner inline, I noticed that the values displayed by the analyzer didn't change when I moved the tuner dials.  When I accidentally bumped the tuner lightly, I got a big jump in the numbers on the analyzer.  Each time I lightly tapped the tuner, I'd get big swings in the numbers on the analyzer.

I've already had the cover off the tuner just to check for obvious shipping damage, but I think I need to take it off again and go over everything inside very closely.  Anyone have any hints of what I should look for specifically based on the behavior I mention above?

Thanks,
Mike