Hello,
since I started doing activation for SOTA I have progressively improved the elements of my system, so that installing the aerial when I arrive in a summit becomes easier and simpler.
In the past I used verticals and nowadays a tend to use inverted vee end fed half wave.
Whenever I needed to fix the antenna wire or the coaxial in the fishpole or guying lines I used adhesive tape, velcro or even nylon ties.
Since I discovered the simple gadget I’ll show you, things are much easier and faster.
I had the idea by looking at my wife’s coat; she has some kid of tensioner to adjust her cap on it (sorry, I don’t know the appropriate english word for that tensioner…):
Hey, this would be good to apply tension and fix my antenna wire!
So I headed towards a sewing shop and bought several of such tensioners for cloth. I bought some meters of elastic rope as well. It all is very cheap indeed:
I cut some short lenghts of the adhesive rope and passed through the tensioner. Note the spring that retains the rope avoiding any motion:
See how easy it’s to adjust any wire or coax to the pole now. Put it around the pole and the wire, pass it through and pull from the rope releasing the spring:
If I need to allow motion for the wire in the support point (like if I set up a wire passing through the appex as inverted vee style) I use another trick, but I will tell you about this other day…
Let me point this is also a environmental friendly solution: I don’t leave any waste on the summit contrary to what you’ll get if you remove adhesive tape or nylon ties…
An improvement is to buy the elastic rope in clear or bright color next time to see it better on the summit if it falls when collecting the gear.
Hope it helps you too. VY 73 de Ignacio
