Re: [IRCA] Repairing the beverage

[mwdxer@xxxxxxxxx (Patrick Martin)]

Thanks Bruce. I'll pick up the extra extention cords. It is a soldering
gun not an iron. But with a drop of 4-5 volts, that isn't enough of a
drop to do anything. I thought the drop may be a lot more. Great.
   I have a bad splice somewhere and the signal goes on and down with a
bad connection.. It has been driving me nuts. Tomorrow, weather
permitting, I plan to run 500 feet of wire out along the ground to the
top of the hill, and cut the beverage and tie that wire in and see if
the problem goes away.  That great copperclad wire I bought is very
good, but...there is one big problem, if you get a break in the wire.
The copper is so thin, cleaning the oxidized wire, you end up with steel
that is next to impossible to solder to. I have a couple splices in the
wire after trees fell across it. So what I am planing on doing. I have
thousands of feet of the #14 steel wire with some kind of coating that
rosincore solder does stick to it fine. Easy to make good splices.
Infact I used that wire for a 2500 foot Northern beverage for years.
Tough as nails and fairly light. I will solder 500 feet of tha up to the
top of the hill, if than copperclad stuff is the problem, which I think
it is. I checked all the the splices but there still is some issue I
cannot find. I have thousands of feet of the steel wire and it solders
fine to the copper. Then in the Summer, I will try and get something
else or replace the whole 1500' with the steel wire. At MW frequencies,
I doubt changing the wire to steel would make any difference anyway. The
wire has a nice rubber jacket on it too. It came from the cable company
as support wire for their lines.
Thanks again.

73,

Patrick 

Patrick Martin
KAVT Reception Manager

_______________________________________________
IRCA mailing list
IRCA@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://montreal.kotalampi.com/mailman/listinfo/irca

Opinions expressed in messages on this mailing list are those of the original contributors and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the IRCA, its editors, publishing staff, or officers

For more information: http://www.ircaonline.org

To Post a message: irca@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx