How about coating the cables with Rat Poison......73 K1WJ

We're in the process of moving into a new house, and that is what I'm
considering for my first HF antenna:  a 40m loop around the eaves of the
house, possibly extended to 80m running along the wood fence.

But the neighbor feeds the local squirrels on top of the fence, so I'm
considering ways to discourage them.  Running the coax in flexible
electrical conduit would work, of course, but I'm also looking at
coatings for cables that will discourage them.  An ultrasonic rodent
repeller or recorded raptor cries are other possibilities.

True CopperClad(R) wire as is used for antennas is 30% copper.  MIG may be
about 0.05% to 0.30% copper by weight (thinner gives better results.)  So there
is a difference of 100 : 1 or more in the coating thickness.

For a 1mm wire, the thickness would be about 60um for copper clad vs. 0.6um
maximum for copper plated (and perhaps 0.1 microns for the better quality
MIG wire - that's 1000 Angstroms, or roughly 400 atoms thick.)


Another important difference is the skin depth at the frequency of operation.
The types of 450 ohm twinlead using CopperClad(r) wire have higher losses on
160m than regular copper because the copper isn't thick enough to keep the
RF currents out of the lossier steel core.  (Magnetic materials have hysteresis
losses at RF because the magnetic field can't switch as fast.)  A thinner copper
coating will have higher losses, especially at higher frequencies where the
depth of the copper is no longer less than the skin depth.


Not that you can't try it out if you already have the wire - it may still work.
But even in a sheltered location I would expect the losses to be higher for
the MIG wire due to the skin depth. This particularly becomes an issue when
antennas are smaller than full-sized, because of the increased currents.
Your 15' x 18' loop may be OK on 20m and higher frequencies, but pressing
it into service on 40m will cause high currents and I think the losses will
increase significantly.

But try it and see.

Could you put up a birdhouse? When I lived in a rental house, I got permission to put up a birdhouse on a 10' copper pole, I installed it on a wooden stockade fence. Amazingly enough, it was also usable as an antenna!
The corner of the fence was next to the house, and I ran the RG-8X under some existing mulch, attached a couple of radial wires to the bottom of the fence and off we went. It worked 6 - 20M very well, and was usable on 30M.
As a novice I installed a dipole in the attic of my apartment building using 50' of wire on each leg. I zig-zagged the wire to make it fit and fed it with RG-58. It worked better than the aluminium gutters. Used it on 10-80M

I'm curious as to why radials can't be used in your backyard, is it a communal area? If not, you could just lay radials on the ground and stick them down with lawn staples. After a while the grass will grow over them.. I use thin stranded insulated wire in black, dark gray, or brown, it's practically invisible in the grass to start off. Stranded works better as solid wire will take a shape and may stick up to be snagged by a foot or a lawn mower.. Also, be careful with your weed-whacker near the radials..

When I was renting, I always got a kick out of trying to set up a stealth antenna..  Not only do you have to hide the antenna, you have to work on it in such a way that your neighbors don't catch on to what you're doing..  In a way, kinda like the old black & white movies where the characters used secret radios..

Hope to see you on the air,
73!
Bill AB9TA