A recent post on the reddit /r/amateurradio, got me to thinking about a better way to measure wire length here in my shack. I’ve been using one of two methods:
- Laying the wire on my basement floor, where I’ve marked off different lengths.
- Going out into the backyard and measuring the length using a 100-ft. measuring reel.
These two methods work OK because I don’t do it that often, but recently a friend wanted 100-ft. of RG-8X off the 1000-ft spool I purchased from DX Engineering a couple years ago. It was too cold and snowy out in the backyard, so I had to measure multiple short lengths down in my basement. That was a real pain in the butt. It took me more than a half hour to measure the coax and then coil it up for my friend.
That reddit post stirred up that bad memory, so I decided to see if there was something out there that could make my life easier. Of course, the first thing I did was to search on Amazon.
The first thing that I found was the Olympic 1410 Cordage Measurer. This is what the pros use. If you’ve ever purchased wire or rope at a hardware store, chances are this is what they used to measure your purchase. This is a great device, but it costs $450!
Fortunately, there are less-expensive options. For example, you could purchase a measuring wheel, like the Komelon ML1810 Measuring Wheel. This device costs less than $30. The downside to this is that you’d have to build some kind of fixture to hold the wire tight to the wheel while you’re measuring the wire. That doesn’t seem like it would be too difficult to do, though. The upside is that you could then use it to measure other things around the house, like your lot size or the length of your driveway.
Amazon also sells other types of meters with rollers and two wheels, but it looks like these meters were designed to measure material. As such, they’re calibrated in yards. I think that those would be more difficult to use.
A couple of the respondents mentioned that they had made marks on their driveways and used those marks to measure wire lengths when they needed to. Another mentioned that he used a laser distance measurer. Those seem like good options, too, but I think I’d still like to have something like the cordage measurer. Maybe I’ll buy the measuring wheel and play around with it.
The measuring wheel is much easier. I had one of the other devices, but never used it.
I have a 300 ft. measuring tape which we use every year at Field Day, to work out how far apart to put our wire antenna poles. Not too expensive, and works for measuring long antennas (160 meters, anyone?), but of course, not too useful when up to your knees in snow.
I originally got one of these for use at work, because we needed to measure out 300 ft. around a vehicle, to test remote start range for our key fobs.
For measuring thin wire, cut a stiff piece of cardboard so that 2 opposite edges are 1ft apart..
Wind the wire onto that and count carefully as each turn goes on. It helps if you cut slits at one edge to keep the wire end in place.