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Title: NICE WX Sunday Post by: flintstone mop on October 20, 2008, 10:17:23 AM It was perfect antenna planting WX Sunday OCT 19. Nice warm Sun and no wind. Perfect for soldering 35 ground radials. I'm shooting for 30 more. The vertical is connected to the shack again and will work, but more radials will be more tweeking of the inductor and eventually a remote tuner to make the antenna work the entire 160M band....hope...hope...hope. I had to grab for the great conditions. 'Twas nicesh!!!
Fred..............I know the next step is to turn on the equipment and make some QSO's. Decent activity lately. Title: Re: NICE WX Sunday Post by: k4kyv on October 20, 2008, 07:31:05 PM Hope you didn't use regular lead/tin solder to solder the ground radials, if the solder joints come in contact with the soil. If they contact the soil, the solder will turn to a white powder in short order, the radial wires will fall off, and you will have to regularly re-do them. Better to use silver alloy solder. I get mine at a plumbers supply shop. It's the same stuff plumbers use to solder copper pipes together. It is supposed to be illegal to use lead/tin solder for water supply plumbing because of the possibility that lead may leach into drinking water.
A regular butane torch will not get hot enough for the silver alloy. Use a Mapp gas torch. The stuff works like magic. No flux needed. Copper sucks it up like a sponge sucks up water. Title: Re: NICE WX Sunday Post by: w4bfs on October 21, 2008, 09:03:09 AM an excellent idea, Don ... sandpaper the copper, heat to dull red ...silver solder go woosh ! ...73 ...John
Title: Re: NICE WX Sunday Post by: flintstone mop on October 21, 2008, 10:22:32 AM The WX today in Western Pa has turned into a late Fall, cloudy, rainy day. AMfone - Dedicated to Amplitude Modulation on the Amateur Radio Bands
I'm glad I got this project out of the way BUT I missed the boat on the solder. I'll wait for a dry day above 50, and after 25 more radials, spray some Krylon clear coat to stop the corrosion factor. Fred |