DX-WIRE FL 85m reel

Harddrawn Stranded Copper Wire
A lot of radio amateurs prefer insulated flexible litz wire because of its easier handling for antenna building as well as for transporting and storing. In principle stranded wire can be constructed from copperweld wires, but the copper layer on the single strands will be extremely thin. On a copperweld wire of 0,2 mm in diameter the copper layer will be not more than 0,01 mm. As the skin depth is about 0,05 mm on the low bands there will be noticeably higher losses on these frequencies. Furthermore there have been reports of severe rusting as the protective layer of copper is extremely thin. For these reasons we have tried to find suppliers who are able to produce litz wire from harddrawn strands of solid copper. In the process of production the wire is drawn to the intended gauge by special machines. After controlled stretching in these machines the originally soft and elastic copper will get a mechanical tension that makes further stretching difficult and doubles the load of breaking. Usually these wires are heat-processed after drawing and the copper is soft again. The wire is elastic again, but at the price of a much lower breaking load. Without this glowing process the hard-drawn copper strands can be used to produce litz wire that is less elastic but considerably stronger. Furthermore it can be handled more conveniently than copper clad steel wire. At the moment we can offer three versions of hard drawn stranded wire, all covered with a thin insulation of black uv-resistant polyethylene. One of them is our durable type "FS2". This flexible wire is recommended for stationary applications, while our type "FL"(flexible light) with is 32 strands of 0,20 mm each lends itself to portable use.

We recommend 2mm simplex clamps for the FL Litz.
You may optionally reinforce the clamp area with a

shrinking tube. Then a 3mm simplex clamp would be

the right size.