{"id":6553,"date":"2025-03-28T14:09:43","date_gmt":"2025-03-28T22:09:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/islandhf.ca\/?page_id=6553"},"modified":"2025-03-30T16:28:02","modified_gmt":"2025-03-31T00:28:02","slug":"useful-knots-for-portable-ham-radio","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/islandhf.ca\/index.php\/useful-knots-for-portable-ham-radio\/","title":{"rendered":"Useful Knots for Portable Ham Radio"},"content":{"rendered":"

Useful Knots for Portable Ham Radio<\/strong><\/h2>\n

By Scott Schillereff, VA7SNJ, March 2025<\/em><\/h3>\n

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\nGood knots are indispensable for successful set ups in portable ham radio (and life in general!).\u00a0 I describe here six highly useful knots, along with seven additional knots (honourable mention) which are also handy.\u00a0 All of these knots are easy to tie, stable when properly loaded, and allow you to make fixed loops, join ropes, make adjustable and fixed tie-offs, and bind things together.<\/p>\n

Each knot is described below.\u00a0 For my six preferred knots, links are provided to online videos on how to tie them.\u00a0 There are many additional videos online for tying just about any knot.\u00a0 Table 1 (below) presents a summary of reference information and recommended applications for all 13 knots.\u00a0 A knot-tying guide (Figure 7) provides a crib sheet for tying the six preferred knots.\u00a0 (Note: this guide is not intended for life safety applications).<\/strong><\/p>\n

Knots are a personal thing and there are numerous alternatives to those presented here.\u00a0 Feel free to try these and others to find your favourites.<\/p>\n

Knot Efficiency and Dressing<\/strong><\/p>\n

Any knot introducing a sharp bend to a rope weakens that rope (typically to ~40-80% of original rope strength) due to uneven stress distribution within the knot.\u00a0 Knot efficiency<\/em> (%) is the strength of the knotted rope divided by the strength of the unknotted rope (x 100).\u00a0 Other factors being equal, it is best to choose knots with highest knot efficiency.\u00a0 The six knots highlighted in Table 1 have relatively high knot efficiencies.<\/p>\n

For best performance and efficiency, a knot should be well<\/em> dressed<\/em>, that is, after loosely tying, it should be incrementally snugged and shaped to have the best form and symmetry before it is loaded.\u00a0 Simple knots (like those here) can be dressed using fingertips or a pointed tool (e.g., mechanical pencil, small Phillips head screwdriver filed into a marlinspike, or a nail). With knots, as with many worthwhile things in life, you should \u201cdress for success\u201d \ud83d\ude0a.<\/p>\n

Interestingly, when a rope is passed around a round object with diameter four times or greater than that of the rope, rope strength is not reduced (called the 4-to-1 Rule<\/em>).\u00a0 This means, for example, that a guy line cord wrapped around a thick tent stake would be stronger than the same cord wrapped around a thinner stake.<\/p>\n

Finally, the ease of untying <\/em>is important in choosing a knot.\u00a0 Some knots are inherently easy to untie (e.g., Zeppelin Bend).\u00a0 Some knots can be tied as a \u201cslip\u201d version, where the last pass of the end of the rope (working end) is a small loop (bight).\u00a0 By pulling that bight out, the knot collapses and the rope can be easily recovered.\u00a0 In contrast, some knots are notoriously difficult to untie after heavy loading (e.g., Double Fisherman\u2019s Bend, which is not on my preferred list for that reason).\u00a0 At the extreme end of things, the Constrictor Knot is nearly impossible to untie after heavy loading and must be cut off.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>\n\n