Birmingham Wire Gauge (BWG) table
Birmingham Wire Gauge (BWG), also know as Stubbs Iron Wire Gauge (SWG, which, of course, is different from Stubbs Steel Wire Gauge) was used to specify copper wire sizes in Great Britain. It is not the same as the American Wire Gauge (AWG) used in the US. I’ve included it here for those trying to interpret older British antenna articles (and possibly those from Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, or other parts of the Commonwealth.)
Note that the larger sizes would be specified verbally as “Five ought”.
| BWG gauge | diameter (inches) | diameter (mm) |
| 00000 or 5/0 | 0.500 | 12.7 |
| 0000 or 4/0 | 0.454 | 11.532 |
| 000 or 3/0 | 0.425 | 10.795 |
| 00 or 2/0 | 0.380 | 9.652 |
| 0 | 0.340 | 8.638 |
| 1 | 0.300 | 7.620 |
| 2 | 0.284 | 7.214 |
| 3 | 0.259 | 6.579 |
| 4 | 0.238 | 6.045 |
| 5 | 0.220 | 5.588 |
| 6 | 0.203 | 5.156 |
| 7 | 0.180 | 4.572 |
| 8 | 0.165 | 4.191 |
| 9 | 0.148 | 3.759 |
| 10 | 0.134 | 3.404 |
| 11 | 0.120 | 3.048 |
| 12 | 0.109 | 2.769 |
| 13 | 0.095 | 2.413 |
| 14 | 0.083 | 2.108 |
| 15 | 0.072 | 1.829 |
| 16 | 0.065 | 1.651 |
| 17 | 0.058 | 1.473 |
| 18 | 0.049 | 1.245 |
| 19 | 0.042 | 1.067 |
| 20 | 0.035 | 0.889 |
| 21 | 0.032 | 0.813 |
| 22 | 0.028 | 0.711 |
| 23 | 0.025 | 0.635 |
| 24 | 0.022 | 0.559 |
| 25 | 0.020 | 0.508 |
| 26 | 0.018 | 0.457 |
| 27 | 0.016 | 0.406 |
| 28 | 0.014 | 0.356 |
| 29 | 0.013 | 0.330 |
| 30 | 0.012 | 0.305 |
| 31 | 0.010 | 0,254 |
| 32 | 0.009 | 0.229 |