DX-Wire UL

Wire antennas are easy to make, but often also easy to break!

Of chief concern up here in the ex-Hurricane swept regions of north west Wales is how to make an antenna that tolerates millions of sways back and forth without breakage.

As earlier reported, I have used Kevlar-cored wire for my delta loops and lots of other designs.  It's very strong, three times lighter than FlexWeave, and lasts for a reasonably long time, although the metal braid does eventually fail and arcing can burn through the Kevlar core.

Very thin, but stiff.  DX-Wire UL.

An inverted-L I threw up some time ago in the expectation of it being rubbish proved very wrong - it was in fact a spectacular success for 80, 60 and 30m, yielding one of the top signals anywhere to be found (helped by exceptional ground conditions.)

But, because the experiment was made of simple hook-up wire, it wasn't very strong and after a couple of very windy winters, has now more repaired breaks in it than is ideal!

I decided to try the DX-Wire UL stocked by SOTABeams.  At under 50p a metre, it does make for very cheap antennas!  What's more, at only 1.5mm OD, it only weighs 4g per metre (confirmed as correct), so a 20m delta in this material would weigh only 86g - 3 times lighter than standard, 3mm Kevlar cored wire.

I received 20m of the UL to replace my inverted-L.  It's quite stiff, which is explained by the conductor being six strands of tinned copper.  I am not sure how long stiff tinned copper will put up with continual flexing in the wind, and I suspect the answer will be: not very.  But I may be wrong.  It is, however, easy to separate the Kevlar - much more so than the 3mm stuff - from the wire at the ends to be soldered to connectors.

As I said in the earlier post about Kevlar wire, don't be fooled into thinking it's "indestructible" as some claim.  It's not the tension that breaks the conductor, it's the constant flexing and consequent metal fatigue.  In that respect, the Kevlar doesn't make as much difference as you might expect.

What is annoying about the stiff wire is that for portable working, it will tie itself up in massively frustrating and time-consuming knots, which will be difficult to undo without damaging the conductors, very quickly.  This happens with hook-up wire for the same, stiffness reason.

So, I think it might last a bit longer than hook-up for the permanent inverted L, but otherwise, I'm not at all persuaded yet. Suffice it to say that if a delta breaks, it will be replaced in 3mm, not 1.5mm.

UPDATE: As predicted, this wire gets itself into pretty bad knots very easily. My earlier concerns about UV resistance do no seem to have turned into reality, and the elevated radials of my 20m vertical standby antenna have put up with gales in excess of 80mph this winter. So, I think we can say this wire is worth using, but try to reduce constant bending if possible.