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Old 28th Feb 2019, 7:25 pm   #2
G6Tanuki
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Join Date: Apr 2012
Location: Wiltshire, UK.
Posts: 13,998
Default Re: Which is the best material for an aerial sleeve?

The issue can become a bit of a minefield - it's often quite difficult to identify the precise chemistry of a piece of plastic just by looking at it (which is one of the difficulties when trying to recycle the stuff) - similarly a kind of plastic that is 'good' at RF in its basic form may become lossy when colourants (like carbon-black...) are added to it.

In the past I've used Polythene for RF coil/choke formers in transmitters where a few hundred Watts are flying around, and it's worked just fine.

I believe the outer covering of the 'Comet'-branded white-stick VHF/UHF collinears is actually glass-reinforced-plastic (GRP): you may be able to source a hollow windsurf-mast! Though be aware that some of these are now Kevlar-reinforced and some Kevlar is conductive...
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