Mark, it seems to me you are taking two of the best possible steps,
verification of who the enemy is via the trail cam and more robustly
armoring the trouble spot. The camera will satisfy your curiosity and
the armoring will offer real protection.
I have a 200 gal round stock watering tank positioned adjacent to a well
house. It has an auto fill float valve and a thermostatically
controlled heater in it. In summer I don't have the heater powered up
and the cows ate the wires and chewed up the water hose. I repaired the
damage and wrapped the trouble spot with 4 point barbed wire. You can't
buy barbed wire in short lengths (comes in large rolls) but if you could
find a fence company or farmer/rancher with barbed wire fences you could
probably get several feet for free or low cost. The 4 point is best and
some of that will make a real deterrent to further damage. Barbed wire
is a much better deterrent than hardware cloth.
An optional method of application of the barbed wire that is easier on
you to install is to encircle the area of interest with several straight
pieces of barbed wire running parallel to the coax. Use wire to make
ties around the coax/barbed wire bundle. If you carefully remove the
barbs from a foot long piece of barbed wire and separate the two wire
strands the individual wires can be use to wrap around the bundle of
coax and barbed wire. I can't think of a critter of lesser stature than
Godzilla that could gnaw through a coax protected this way.
The cattle ate the wires of my first WX station even though they were in
PVC conduit. My second station is better protected.
Best of luck to you whichever way you proceed. I hope the trail cam
identifies the culprit and it isn't some misguided miscreant.
I got a good belly laugh re the fence them out suggestions, electric
fence or otherwise, as from my personal observation I can assure you
that geese are good fliers capable of clearing any fence, great wall of
China, Trump's border wall, etc.
Patrick NJ5G
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