Stainless steel wire

[jazzboypro]

Hello all,

Do any of you use or have used stainless steel wire to make wire antennas ? is it any good ?

Many thanks
73
De VA2FCS

 

[mmckenna]

Antenna Wire: Stainless Steel vs. Copper – VK2MB: Manly-Warringah Radio Society

I looked into this once. I'm close enough to the ocean that salt air is an issue. I thought stainless steel wire would be a good option. Apparently not. There's some better choices, the linked article covers it.
Even shipboard, we didn't use stainless steel wire for the HF/LF antennas. I think it was phosphor bronze, but that was a long time ago….

 

[prcguy]

Stainless wire or whip or whatever is not a great conductor for RF and the losses can be measured on air. Stainless or nichrome wire is also used for frequency selective chokes where short runs of them can pass HF ok but at VHF/UHF they get lossy enough to suppress VHF/UHF oscillations. If you must have lots of corrosion resistance then stainless is ok but you will give up a little performance.

 

[jazzboypro]

Thanks for the article and feedback guys. Much appreciated

 

[majoco]

mmckenna said:

Even shipboard, we didn't use stainless steel wire for the HF/LF antennas. I think it was phosphor bronze, but that was a long time ago….

Agreed - it was a long time ago, let's say a bit under 60 years, but I remember getting 100yard lengths of 7 strand hard-drawn copper from the Marconi Marine stores to make HF antennas. At the radio college we learnt how to splice the ends and joints - no solder or bulldog clips.

 

[mmckenna]

mmckenna said:

Agreed - it was a long time ago, let's say a bit under 60 years, but I remember getting 100yard lengths of 7 strand hard-drawn copper from the Marconi Marine stores to make HF antennas. At the radio college we learnt how to splice the ends and joints - no solder or bulldog clips.

In 93 or 94, I helped take down our 500kc antenna. Wish I'd though to find a way to hang on to that wire. It was nice stuff.

 

[K6GBW]

I have a stainless dipole and I can say without a doubt it doesn't receive or transmit as well as a copper version. Do they work? Absolutely they do, and if you needed a wire antenna for NVIS out to about 300 miles or so it would be fine. But for ham radio I think you'd find it frustrating.