Why no commercially made open wire spreaders on the market?

[k4kyv]

Open wire feeders have once again become popular with radio amateurs. "Ladder line" has become a common ham radio term.  Antenna tuners with balanced output, produced by major manufacturers are widely available.  Articles frequently appear in QST and other ham publications using OWL, and there is in-depth discussion of tuned and untuned balanced line in the handbooks.  There are many articles describing ways to laboriously fabricate spreaders, using everything from PVC pipe, hair curlers to plastic coat hangers.  New Old Stock commercial spreaders such as the ceramic ones made by EF Johnson go for top dollar at hamfests and on ePay.

With all this interest in open wire amongst amateurs, why is it that about the only thing available on the commercial market is that crappy "window line" garbage, which is nothing but heavy duty TV ribbon with rectangular holes punched in the plastic dielectric, the only possible exception being the W7FG open wire  line? No-one seems to be offering pre-manufactured spreaders for making one's own line, and they certainly do not appear in any of the major appliance distributors' catalogues, such as Texas Towers, HRO, AES, etc.

[w3jn]

The W7FG stuff costs little more than it would to make it from scratch.   With PVC pipe and all sorts of synthetic subs for the old heavy ceramic spreaders, there's probably little/no demand for it.

[WA1GFZ]

why do it right when you can sell crap.
I'm set for life with Johnson spreaders

[KX5JT]

This is something I have noticed too.  Presently I have an RG-213 coax feed to my single 75 Meter dipole.  I took down the G5RV after my crappy MFJ-tuner roller inductor complained heavily at the added power from the Henry amp.  I'm a slow poke at projects due to other commitments so the homebrew balanced tuner is still a bit up the road for me.  In the mean time, I am considering throwing up a parallel 40 and maybe a 20 meter dipole under the existing 75 meter fed off of the same feedline. 

This has brought me to a similar conclusion, since I will need spreaders on the dipoles to do this.  I'm trying to avoid pvc simply because it will look odd having some white pipe sections floating above my yard.  The dipole is made from 14 gauge solid wire with black insulation and is really nearly invisible unless you look for it. 

I saw a post from a couple years back where Don, K4KYV built open line with acrylic plexiglass spreaders.  Since I have a large sheet of that which was bought for the large homebrew inductor on the tuner project, I'm thinking of making some spreaders from that.  If that stuff is good enough for high power tuner coils, it should be good enough for antenna spreaders too.  Jetstream makes a "fan dipole kit" that includes a 1:1 choke balun and some sort of antenna spreaders and you provide the wire but I already have the W2DU 1:1 choke and ceramic insulators so I'm not spending the 80 bucks on that!

http://www.jetstream-usa.com/jtfan.shtml

BTW, one of the best things I bought recently is a little bench top drill press from Harbor Freight.  I had an expired coupon from Flying magazine for 39.95 when regularly 79.95 and they actually accepted it and honored it!  Looks like I might be putting it too use on the plexiglass.  First I have some branches to remove (or maybe the entire tree) because the darn thing is in the way!

[KL7OF]

The explanation is simple...There's no money to be made manufacturing and selling OWL spreaders.....I think we are lucky that they still make the window line crap...I thought about asking the pottery class at the community college or an independent potter to make up a few but I never acted on it.....

[Bill, KD0HG]

C'mon guys!

Both the Wireman and Davis RF sell poly "#14 copperweld window line".

Made from 14 gauge stranded copperweld spaced maybe 1-1/4".  I've got a run of the stuff up 100' on the side of the tower and it's lasted 10 years now with no degradation, and it takes full bore power. I have never smoked it, and it's taken 100 MPH+ winds.

It's way more rugged than open wire fashioned from Johnson insulators and soft copper wire.

Seriously.

[Bill, KD0HG]

C'mon guys!

Both the Wireman and Davis RF sell poly "#14 copperweld window line".

Made from 14 gauge stranded copperweld spaced maybe 1-1/4".  I've got a run of the stuff up 100' on the side of the tower and it's lasted 10 years now with no degradation, and it takes full bore power. I have never smoked it, and it's taken 100 MPH+ winds. The poly insulation is as good today as it was years ago. No cracking, no degradation in our southwestern sun.

It's way more rugged than open wire fashioned from Johnson insulators and soft copper wire. I was a good friend of Gary,loved the dude, but the W7FG line is light duty stuff made from insulated #16 stranded soft copper. The Wireman and Davis RF line is 10x better and stronger. I refused to endorse the W7FG line in a past magazine article. I had a sample, it was lightweight stuff and I smoked it with a pair of 304s.It actually caught on fire, XYL freaked out, had to spray the tower down with the garden hose.

It's prolly OK if matched at 100-500 watts, but don't try to run a crusher or BC transmitter into it.

Seriously. What it is. Nothing smaller than #14.

[k4kyv]

Spreaders don't have to be made of heavy, brittle, expensive ceramic.  Plexiglass works well, and I suspect polycarbonate would be still better.  Polycarbonate rod stock  is available commercially and inexpensive.  The going price for EFJ ceramic spreaders would suggest that money could be made mass producing good, durable spreaders.

I have some 6" clear plastic spreaders made by  Bud, n.o.s. still in the box. I have made my own using plexiglass rods.  Many hams who would be willing to make up good open wire line if they had the spreaders don't have the drill press and other shop tools required to make them out of blank rod stock.

[W1AEX]

I don't have the answer for you Don. Seems like a commonly sought after item based upon many conversations I have had on the air. Some enterprising guy with simple tools and skills could make a few bucks on the side cranking them out.

I followed a recent thread at EHam regarding this. The first poster mentioned that he used electric fence insulators which are designed to handle high voltage and are UV resistant. They are 4 inches in length and apparently come in packages of 100 for around 5 bucks. All you would need to do is notch the ends and use a hot glue gun to fasten the wire on each side in place. Looks interesting, but I have not confirmed that price at any place online. There were a few other clever methods mentioned in the thread.

http://www.eham.net/articles/23413

As always, when I cruise any building supply houses I keep an eye out for (cheap) material that would work out well.

[W1GFH]

I recall a small story in QST circa early 70s, about 2 paragraphs. It was about a rural ham who made his own open wire line by whittling a large number of wooden spreaders and boiling them in paraffin wax. According to the story it took him many months to complete the project. A caption quoted him as saying, "It just goes to show what a poor man can accomplish". An accompanying photo revealed that the ham was a black man dressed in ragged overalls standing outside a log cabin with his more prosperous white ham radio club president posed alongside. At the time, I thought the story was very odd on several levels, since boatanchors were uncool and open wire line was considered old-fashioned.

[AC4R]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzFKGB6qkXs


Check out the above link to homebrew "ink pen open line"  N4LQ has a novel
idea to homebrew true open line

[WB2CAU]

Spreaders don't have to be made of heavy, brittle, expensive ceramic.  Plexiglass works well, and I suspect polycarbonate would be still better.  Polycarbonate rod stock  is available commercially and inexpensive.  The going price for EFJ ceramic spreaders would suggest that money could be made mass producing good, durable spreaders.

I have some 6" clear plastic spreaders made by  Bud, n.o.s. still in the box. I have made my own using plexiglass rods.  Many hams who would be willing to make up good open wire line if they had the spreaders don't have the drill press and other shop tools required to make them out of blank rod stock.

Don, here's a perfect opportunity for you to start a small manufacturing business creating a product for others sharing your radio hobby.  You can design them, fabricate them from plastic, and sell them, "factory-direct".  You'll be doing something you enjoy and providing a needed product.  And, I'm sure it will be XYL-approved if money comes into the household.  

Personally, I derived a great deal of self-satisfaction in fabricating my own spreaders from discarded plastic test strips gleaned from the dumpster at my former place of employment.  I enjoy making something useful out of discarded stuff.  The test strips were 5" long so I cut them in half (for 2.5" line spacing), drilled 2 - 0.11" holes at each end.  Then I used 2 black (UV resistant) cable ties to secure the 12 AWG solid copper conductors to each end of the spreaders.  I spaced them 19" apart.  I used epoxy to reinforce the cable tie bond.  

Eric

[Ed/KB1HYS]

I think the last posts explain it well enough.  Most folks who want to use OWL have the homebrew bug so instead of purchasing spreaders or line, they make their own.  

It's a case of perceived value, if I can make a thing, I will pay a lot less for it no matter how nicely done it may be by the other guy, since "I could do that myself".

I always figured it was cooler to have built a station from items not normally used in radio, like cake pans or bread board for chassis, Home made open wire line, spark-plug lightning gaps, etc.  I think is shows true understanding of the art if you can create functional equipment from whats available whether it's radio parts or not.

[K4QE]

Ain't cheap but they are the real McCoy...

http://www.daburn.com/10-62feederspreaderinsulators.aspx

[Vortex Joe - N3IBX]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzFKGB6qkXs


Check out the above link to homebrew "ink pen open line"  N4LQ has a novel
idea to homebrew true open line

Wow, What a great idea this guy has! I'm definitely going to try it with the next antenna and feedline project I do. Not only are the materials readily available, but it looks like it'd be very secure as well. The only drawback may be the initial cost of the pens that will lend themselves as standoffs. i guess it wouldn't be to bad if you don't need a lot of feedline.

Last year I made 100' of 600 ohm openwire feeders using 1/4" polycarbonate stock, and the job came out pretty good. it's not perfect, but so far I haven't had any problems with using the aforementioned as spreader material.

For anyone wanting to use 450 ohm ladderline, I stumbled across a novel idea. Someone gave me a few hundred old 35mm film spools that lend themselves rather nicely to make up hb spreaders with.  Just slip your wire through each side, add some hot glue from a hot glue gun, and you'll have yourself a nifty piece of hb transmission line! Just a FYI for anyone out there who may have the material and the willingness to give it a try. it worked fB for me!

[k4kyv]

Ain't cheap but they are the real McCoy...

http://www.daburn.com/10-62feederspreaderinsulators.aspx

Those look very similar to the old EF Johnson ones.  I have seen similar prices for EFJ's at hamfests.  The ham radio appliance outlets ought to carry them, if the company supplies 3rd party dealers.  That price would probably include the markup.

I would still make my own, but I suspect there would be a ham market for them.  I'd have to look in some of my old catalogues, but I am almost willing to bet that the pre-WW2 price for  the EFJ ones, when corrected for inflation of the dollarette, would be about the same as or even more than the Daburns.

[KX5JT]

Those are 2 inch spreaders at 3.92 each minimum 25!! Quite a hit to the wallet!  The 6 inch spreaders are 5.45 each minimum 25!!  I think I'll be drilling some plexiglass!

[KL7OF]

when you start making 600 ohm line that will handle the limit easily..and survive the WX...Let me know....I'm in ...I want some

[N3DRB The Derb]

wifey is a lampworker, meaning she likes to make decorative glass beads.

I could probably talk her into blowing some glass for open wire spreaders. She could even put a desired call sign in them or some other such desired customization. she could make them in color, like red or cobalt blue.    

guess some form of Pyrex ® would be the glass of choice. Extreme buzzardly-ness.

Cant do ceramic, thats a whole nother level of heat.

[K9ACT]

In case you haven't noticed, nobody makes anything anymore.

That may be a bit strong, but you get the idea.

We are a plug and play culture and hams are no different.

js

[Superhet66]

Keep checking e-pay. Quite often the mil spec and other batches of the real deal show up and go cheaply.
 I keep the e-pay search terms for "insulator" very broad and plow through the many results. I have found some rare and obscure stuff that way.
I was going to mention the "pen trick" but some one mentioned it already.

[W2PFY]

Looks like this place has plenty of open wire spreaders.

http://www.surplussales.com/antennas/Antennas-9.html

I know of another source where prices may be better but I need to find it again on my computer.

[k4kyv]

I have some of those little 2" spreaders, and use them with #10 copperweld.  My proposed open wire line from the dawg house to the shack will be made with #8 copperweld, because I have a big spool of it and have run out of #10.  None of the EFJ spreaders will take wire that big.  I have seen some 6" long brown glazed ceramic spreaders, about 1" in diameter, with a groove large enough to accommodate #8,  but not recently.  I would pay $5.50 each for enough of those to build the line, but don't think I would need 25.

I'll probably order some 3/4" or 1" polycarbonate rod stock and make my own.  That stuff seems almost indestructible and supposedly is an excellent rf dielectric, better than plexiglass.

Now, what about standoff insulators to affix the open wire line run to the poles that will support it?  I had thought of ceramic electric fence insulators, but the metal nail that  runs through the ceramic insulator would probably cause breakdown with rf voltage. I need something mechanically sturdy that would attach to a metal or wooden cross bar, but leave a long insulative path between the feeder wires and any metal or lossy wood.

[N3DRB The Derb]

Don,

I've got 25 new glazed ceramic Birnbach 262's nib, yours if you want em. these are about 2" wide. when the wifey gets home with the camera I'll take  some pix and post em for ye.


hmmm here's a resource I've never seen before.

http://www.r-infinity.com/Companies/Catalogs.htm

[k4kyv]

Don,

I've got 25 new glazed ceramic Birnbach 262's nib, yours if you want em. these are about 2" wide. when the wifey gets home with the camera I'll take  some pix and post em for ye.

Thanks, Derb.

Shoot me the photos and I'll let you know if I can use them.

Here is one source of polycarbonate rod.  Looks like cost per spreader wouldn't be a terribly lot cheaper than the ready-made ceramic ones.
http://www.k-mac-plastics.net/polycarbonate-rod.htm

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