Hello Chris.
I checked several references on hand for this particular wire and none provided any notes on the lay of the stranding.
Also, as brilliant a job as the wartime illustrators did with the Master Parts List, the thinness of the 14 gauge wire was beyond their ability to detail the look of the windings. Our scanner is currently sulking so I cannot add an image at the moment. The illustration does show, however, that the last foot of wire is wrapped around the coil a couple of times, pulled back up the coil about six inches and wrapped off around the coil once more. This forms a kind of handle the coil could be carried with and the opposite side of the coil fans out slightly, since it is not secured. I suspect that when the coil of wire was packed in the Remote Operating Case, the open end of the coil went in first to keep it all in place, with the 'handle' at the top for easy retrieval when needed. This modern coil I got used electricians tape to secure the coil and I have seen others using plastic twist ties.
It would be interesting to compare original British wartime 19-Set Horizontal Aerials to Canadian made ones. The tighter you wrap the stranding, the more copper wire gets consumed, so a finished 100 foot run of stranded wire will hold considerably more wire than that when done. Actually, the central core wire would be the only one to be 100 feet long. the other six wrapped around it would all be longer. If you needed to conserve copper during the war, loosening up the wrap in stranded wire would certainly help. One would have to be careful, however, as if the concentric wrap is loosened up too much, it will degrade quickly into a 'bunched' wrap, which can become a complete rats nest to work with in no time.
David
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