22-03-2019, 01:50 PM
VK2BT published an article about why Stainless is a no-no for dipole antennas here:
http://www.mwrs.org.au/2011/06/23/antenn...vs-copper/
As with everything in this hobby, it seems you can find diametrically opposed (and well argued) points of view on just about any subject and its hard to know whom to believe unless you have done extensive experimentation yourself!
I really like the idea of using stainless, it solves a lot of mechanical issues for me and has the added bonus of being cheap and easily found. I had been working on the assumption that the stainless was a big part of the poor antenna performance largely due to the article above but if that isn't the case then I need to look elsewhere.
I think what I am going to do over the weekend is put up a pure 40m dipole using 14AWG copper in parrallel to my stainless 80/40. Using identical baluns and cabling, I am going to do some A/B comparisons and see if there is an actual noticeable difference in performance before I go any further with this...
http://www.mwrs.org.au/2011/06/23/antenn...vs-copper/
As with everything in this hobby, it seems you can find diametrically opposed (and well argued) points of view on just about any subject and its hard to know whom to believe unless you have done extensive experimentation yourself!
I really like the idea of using stainless, it solves a lot of mechanical issues for me and has the added bonus of being cheap and easily found. I had been working on the assumption that the stainless was a big part of the poor antenna performance largely due to the article above but if that isn't the case then I need to look elsewhere.
I think what I am going to do over the weekend is put up a pure 40m dipole using 14AWG copper in parrallel to my stainless 80/40. Using identical baluns and cabling, I am going to do some A/B comparisons and see if there is an actual noticeable difference in performance before I go any further with this...