I spent a couple hours on the tower this evening. The goal was to move
one of the pulleys on top to the NW corner of the tower, install a
second one at the NE corner, and then take down all the LMR 400 in
preparation for installing the LMR-600. The last LMR 400 and LMR 400
Ultra Flex was installed July 29, 2001 or just over 7 years. The
pigtails are still up there.
The good surprise was was every piece of tape used to hold 5 runs of
coax in place was still good although there were a couple of pieces that
looked like they'd been sand blasted. The not so good was the LMR 400
Ultra Flex. After just 7 to 8 years it was all bad. Some of it had
cracks 3 to 4 inches long in places where it wasn't even flexing below
the top of the tower. I haven't had a chance to look at the coils to
see what shape the part that was flexing regularly is in.
However after seeing the lower section of what's up there I'm going to
order some Davis BuryFlex for the new pigtails. Now I have two coils of
LMR-600 UF (115' and 130') that probably aren't going up there. It'll
be interesting to see if any moisture made it past the connectors and
into the regular LMR-400.
Roger (K8RI)
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
TowerTalk mailing list
TowerTalk@contesting.com
http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/towertalk
|