Isolating Guy Wires

[shadow]

Did a few searches but cannot find anything on the subject, maybe someone can link me to a thread or offer some advice. Im wondering how I can break up the guy wires on my antenna mast so they will not resonate and cause interference. Does anyone have experience with this?

[PA629]

Metallic guys can be broken into non-resonant lengths using egg-shaped insulators as strain reliefs. Or you can use non-metallic guys such as Dacron or poly. Ham suppliers such as AES or R&L should have such items. Texas Towers should have different guying systems as well. Google should turn up what you need. In a pinch, I've seen poly water-ski ropes pressed into service, although they're hardly what you'd consider unobtrusive. I've used military surplus nylon parachute cord with push-up poles for temporary and testing/adjusting situations. Hope this helps.

[linx]

From my experience I've never had a problem with the guy wires causing any type of interference with my antennas. My guys are 3/8" galvanized steel braided wire. I do use like a ceramic fence insulator where it attaches one point at my house to hopefully keep a little bit of lightning off my house, lol. I doubt it'll work, but it's worth a try. I have 2 guy wires in the ground, and 1 attached to a porch gable on my house.

[pipsqueek]

Guying can have an added benefit as a terrific ground plane. Use the metallic or plasticized
metallic stranded cable as linx and pa629 had mentioned. Attach 3 or 4 5/8 wavelength about 26' up close to the bottom of a vertical a-99, imax or similar. Use the before-mentioned "egg" insulators and a good Dacron, Kevlar or other antenna rope from there on. The 5/8 wave makes a very efficient ground plane.....better than those kits, although the aluminum hub of those kits can be incorporated into this method. In the threaded tapped holes just install the right size eyelet to attach your guying. Any hardware store will have them.
Free insulators.... go to any cabinet maker who works with Corian counter tops. The always have leftover pieces that they toss. One trip can yield a lifetimes worth of insulating material.
The stuff is strong, di-electric, workable,.....best part....free.
hope this helps.
pip

[DX_MONKEY]

Yep, metal guy wires wouldn't resonate unless they were attached to the antenna itself. Antennas are isolated from their mounts and masts. If they weren't, they would be way out of whack tuning wise and have off the scale SWR's. Guy wires attach to the mast, not the antenna.

good luck

[drdx]

Metal guys can still resonate if they are not connected, if they are remotely close to being resonant. Kinda like a wire beam, some elements have zero physical electrical connection yet are part of the antenna. If you can get to them and think they may be radiating, have someone transmit and go around with a field strength meter and see if you see a rise when in close proximity and with the FS meter antenna in the same plane as the guy wire. Good info above, you can use the upper guy part as a built in ground plane kit for 1/4 or 3/4 length runs. -drdx

[shadow]

have someone transmit and go around with a field strength meter and see if you see a rise when in close proximity and with the FS meter antenna in the same plane as the guy wire.

Thanks for the replies, i actually thought of going up to them with my FS meter, i'll try that today and see what i get. thanks again!

[dud muck]

Yep, metal guy wires wouldn't resonate unless they were attached to the antenna itself. Antennas are isolated from their mounts and masts. If they weren't, they would be way out of whack tuning wise and have off the scale SWR's. Guy wires attach to the mast, not the antenna.

good luck

I've read TVI threads on here about users of A99/imax-2000 without the ground-plane kit.
In this case the guy wires become a ground-plane kit of sorts, RF on the coax shield, RF on the guy wires.
Of course this stuff becomes an issue only when running big watts.
But adding the ground plane kit, doing the coax coily balun, and insulating the guy wires all go towards reducing trouble with the neighbors.

[Gearhead815]

I used phillystran kevlar guy wires on my tower. Definately the best way to go IMO. It is a little pricey, but well worth it. Can be bought from texas towers.
If you want to go cheap, use POLY cord, not nylon. It's weather resistant, and doesn't stretch.
If you just want to add egg insulators to your existing guys, texas towers has them also.

[shadow]

i put the FS meter up to the guy wires and got no reading but when i put it close to the rain gutter where one of the guy wires was strapped to the meter shot up. I think i will start by insulating that contact point and also check the rest of the anchor points. Thanks for the suggestions and the advice!

[209 first class]

just use a non resonant length. 11 meters resonates at 36, 18, 8'6", 4'3". (full, half, quarter, eighth wave) so make your wires 6' 2", or 13' 1" or 25 feet to fit between the lengths. what drdx said is true, they will reradiate just like parasitic beam elements if they are near resonance. i went with army paracord and removed all doubt. 2zero9

[shadow]

ok so here's what i've got. i took a little portable radio, put the headfones on and tuned it until i could hear what i was transmitting. I noticed it got louder when i get closer to my rain gutters. i turned off the linear and tried the same thing. it was weaker but still there and, get this, when i put the radio up against the rain gutter it got so loud that it didnt matter what AM frequency i tuned it to, it was audible.

anyone got any ideas?