Topband: Outdoor cable trunking - opinions pse

[Ashton Lee]

I have pretty different needs on a mountain top in Western Colorado… I need to shield my cables from pack rats who will chew on it. I use very inexpensive irrigation tubing which is made for in ground lawn sprinkling systems. This can be buried or tied in runs above ground.


On Oct 8, 2013, at 5:58 AM, "Shoppa, Tim" <tshoppa at wmata.com> wrote:

> I think the British word "trunking" is what we in the US would call "cable tray", metal trays with removable metal lids.
> 
> Cable tray is very nice for cable management. Solid bottom galvanized cable tray, the kind specified by standards where I work, is hard to justify in cost until dozens of cables are laid in it and total cost of wire management over decades starts becoming important.
> 
> While cable tray lids offer some shielding to 60Hz and audio frequencies, it is markedly inferior to well fitted metallic conduit for RF shielding.
> 
> I've seen cable tray used inside the shack for cable management in some nicer ham station pictures. It would be very hard to justify the substantial cost for a long cable tray run between shack and antennas.
> 
> Tim N3QE
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Dave G4GED [mailto:radiodave.g4ged at tiscali.co.uk]
> Sent: Tuesday, October 08, 2013 03:17 AM
> To: topband at contesting.com <topband at contesting.com>
> Subject: Topband: Outdoor cable trunking - opinions pse
> 
> Hi all,
> 
> I want to re-run all my TX and RX antenna feeders through trunking 
> (detachable lid type), fixed along the bottom of a new 200ft timber fence.
> This will give protection and future flexibility that burying or closed 
> conduit methods wont.
> 
> The question is...to use galvanised steel or PVC?
> 
> I'm favouring steel because when earthed, I believe it will give extra 
> noise screening for the RX feeders but are there any down sides such as 
> "oven effects" in hot summer sun or "diode effects" between lids and 
> sections, or any other problems?
> 
> PVC is a bit cheaper but wont offer the extra screening.
> 
> Does anyone have any relative experience please?
> 
> Thanks in advance.
> Dave G4GED
> 
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