" Next project is to turn a truck wiper motor and worm gearbox into a BOG roller-upper machine. Gettin' lazy in my old age."
A few years ago, I bought 1000 feet of #26 insulated copperweld from R.F. Davis for antenna experiments. 1000 feet weighs a pound and it is used by some in kite antennas. It's not cheap, but if you can't find field wire, and are looking for something for stealthy, or for porta-bogs, this may be the ticket. It's 19 strands of steel, copperplated, which is thin, tough, kink and memory resistant and lightweight. I tried a 500' BOG on a xtal radio project which didn't pan out. For rapid retrieval, I chucked a spool (after duct taping a dowel to the spool) into my Porter-Cable 19 VDC portable electric drill and wound up the half-pound of wire effortlessly. It would be relatively easy to sandwich my current extension cord reel between two disks of plywood held tight with nuts on threaded drill rod that could be chucked into the drill. The drill has more than enough torque and speed control to wind up 500' of military field wire. Hand cranking the reel is fairly simple enough without the need for an electric motor, however. The reel is a frameless 13" x 4" reel, weighing 18 ozs., with a 5.5" hole at center with a plastic insert for gripping that rides along the inside of the reel's cut-out center. I choose it over the ones with external frames because of less bulk and the larger arbor picks up almost 18" of wire per turn at the start of retrieval. Otherwise, you'll wind like crazy with a small arbor until the diameter increases as one reels in wire. 73, Gil NN4CW _______________________________________________ IRCA mailing list [email protected] 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: [email protected]
