ANTENTOP- 03- 2003, # 004

By Igor Grigorov, RK3ZK

antentop@antentop.org

In the far eightieth years of 20 century, on to one of Russian radio transmitting radio center I saw a self-made opened transmission line that fed a transmitting antenna. Struts of the line were made of oak tree. What is wonder at that? These struts were about some tens years old. They were made at the end of 40 years, during restoring of the USSR after World War-II. The struts had been thoroughly boiled in paraffin before installation. Till now these wooden struts, made in great quantity, lie in a tub filled with paraffin. At repair of transmission lines the paraffin is kindled, the insulators are got and used. The wooden struts, despite of their "antiquity", looked rather 'fresh' and had sufficient mechanical and electric strength.

Figure 1 Wooden compression strut

Made in the USSR

Figure 2 Two -wire line with usage of wooden compression struts

The struts had length 12-15 centimeters, and width about 2 centimeters. Kerfs were made at a small distance from ends of the struts. Figure 1 shows the wooden strut. Wires of the ladder line were wound around of struts and kept on kerfs. Figure 2 shows the two-wire line with usage of wooden struts.

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