Galvanized Guy Wire as Wire Antenna Elements?

[AJ1G]

I just put up an old 80 meter dipole that was made many years ago a friend's dad using heavy gauge multi-strand galvanized TV antenna guy wire.  He had a TV sales and service business, and I assume he made the antenna out of his TV antenna guy wire stock.  It is in very good condition, even after being stored outside here for a few years. I'm not sure how long it was out in the weather is its past life, it's probably about 50 years old.

Knowing how difficult it is to solder galvanized wire, I am using all mechanical joints at the feed point and also on a set of insulators and jumpers I added to allow it to be used as a 40 meter and 80 meter antenna.  I'm using tubular aluminum electrical wiring in-line barrel connectors, the ones with a pair of set screws that are designed to handle splicing large gauge wiring from 14 up to 2 gauge.

I would not normally use galvanized wire for an antenna, but I had it all ready made up and it looked to be in pretty good shape so I thought I would give it a try.  I have it all up and tuned and its seems to be working pretty well on both 80 and 40, as well as on the upper end of 15 meters using the inside 40 meter section as a 3/2 wave dipole.  I have it on center and end halyards so it's pretty easy to haul it down and up to change bands with the jumpers.

It's really strong and I expect it will do very well in heavy weather.  My main concern is the long term corrosion
effects both in the wire itself and at the joints. Should I keep using it with the galvanized wire, or switch over to copper?

[KB2WIG]

Soldering galv wire is easy. Get some hydrocloric acid  (HCl) and wipe the galvanization off.   

gud luck with the stuff.


klc

[KL7OF]

Should be good to go.......I used the galv guys on a tower as antenna elements for years....Had to clean up the feed point connections every 5 yrs or so....never did solder the stuff but I don't see why you couldn't with the proper equipment.....Good Luck...

[AJ1G]

Thanks for the feedback...I'm gong to add some anti-corrosive wire grease to the barrel connectors and see how that lasts. 

Interesting that the 3/2 wave dipole lowest SWR on 15 meters seems to be high in the band (luckily around the 21.420 AM  region), a lot higher than I expected with the 40 meter section resonating at around 7.050  based on lowest SWR there at the 1/2 wave fundamental.

Also wondering if I could add phasing sections to feed the outer parts of the antenna on 40 as some sort of full wave co-linear array?