RUNNING CABLE

[GAMMA!GAMMA!steve at gammacc.attmail.com]

I have a problem I've never seen discussed.  I thought I'd collect some 
ideas here.

I am building a medium-to-large size contest station here in Central 
Florida.  It will have four towers; one is next to the house, the others no 
closer than 100', with the farthest out about 350'.  I have been trying to 
determine the best way to run CATV hardline, coax, and rotor/control cables 
out to the towers.

I figure I have two choices: above ground and below ground.

Here's my concerns:
     1) Lightning.  Central Florida has about 100 days a year with 
lightning.  As if
                       that were not bad enough, our lightning is 2 - 3 
times as powerful as your
                       average, run-of-the mill thunderbolt.

     2) UV.  The sun is VERY strong; this can seriously degrade plastics, 
such
                       as cable jackets.

     3) Water table.  The back of my property is swamp.  The water table is
                       therefore very high.  I can't bury the cable very 
deep without having it
                       in a constant state of wetness.

     4) Mobility.  I'd like to be able to run vehicles in the area (for 
mowing
                       weeds etc.).  This means that I can't just leave the 
cables sitting on
                      the ground.

     5) Expandability. I want to be able to run another run of coax to a 
tower
                       without a ridiculous amount of work.

     6) RF on the cables.  Stray RF being picked up by the other cables.


What I have to work with:
     1) A big, open field.  No trees, no walls, no buildings.

I imagine that if I run them above ground on poles, I'd best do like the 
power companies do and run a ground wire across the very top of the poles. 
 Yes? No?

Any large-scale station I'm familiar with is from "up North", and utilized 
trees, old walls, or whatever to make the cable runs.  I've been thinking 
about this for awhile, and STILL haven't come up with any brilliant 
solutions.

Any ideas would be GREATLY appreciated.   Please respond to me directly.
 My address is: "ssacco at attmail.com";   If any really cool ideas surface, 
I'll report them back to the reflector.

Thanks!

Steve KC2X
Narcoosee, Florida


>From Steve Harrison <sharriso at sysplan.com>  Fri Jun 10 19:10:23 1994
From: Steve Harrison <sharriso at sysplan.com> (Steve Harrison)
Date: Fri, 10 Jun 1994 14:10:23 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: Bladder
Message-ID: <Pine.3.87.9406101423.B20867-0100000 at eagle>

Not English, Californian and Texan.

Steve KO0U/4

On Thu, 9 Jun 1994, Tim Ellam wrote:

> Whats this English fixation with bladder control???
> 
> Tim VE6SH, G4HUA
> 
> ----
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> | Logical Solutions Computer Systems Inc.       Calgary, Alberta, Canada |
> | Internet: logical.cuc.ab.ca                   (403)-299-9900 24 Lines  |
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> 



>From Steve Harrison <sharriso at sysplan.com>  Fri Jun 10 19:12:18 1994
From: Steve Harrison <sharriso at sysplan.com> (Steve Harrison)
Date: Fri, 10 Jun 1994 14:12:18 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: Aid for single-ops?
Message-ID: <Pine.3.87.9406101418.C20867-0100000 at eagle>

One way is for the blind contester to speak the contact into a tape 
recorder. A problem, whatever media the blind ham uses for logging, is 
telling time. A talking digital clock would be good; every minute or five 
minutes, the clock could be automatically recorded on the logging tape. 
After the contest, the blind ham could transfer the taped log to paper or 
computer. This method is NOT at all the same thing as recording QSOs 
directly from a receiver, and transferring the recorded log to paper or 
computer after the contest is exactly the same thing as cleaning-up a 
hand-written log after the contest.

73, Steve KO0U/4 <sharrison at sysplan.com>

On Fri, 10 Jun 1994, Takao Kumagai wrote:

> What will be the appropriate advice to the blind ham who
> attend the contest together with his xyl as a logger in
> the single op category.
> 
> This must be multi op class. And I know what single op means.
> 
> I believe he wished to join us very much but great difficulty
> to log the qso by himself at real time.
> Is there no way to submit the log as multi-op?
> Touch-typing will be encouraged? How can he know the typo?
> 
> I hope to have the way which let him stay with us in contesting.
> 
> Any suggestions, advice or tech. hints will be greatly appreciated.
> Thanks in advance
> 
> Tack JE1CKA
>