Topband: Coax issues

Charlie Cunningham charlie-cunningham at nc.rr.com
Wed Feb 19 15:08:09 EST 2014


Hi Gary!  I'm surprised at wabbits chewing coax!  Usually squirrels!
Although I would hope the coyote urine would help in any case. The little
"tree rats" can be really destructive!

73,
Charlie, K4OTV

-----Original Message-----
From: Topband [mailto:topband-bounces at contesting.com] On Behalf Of Gary
Smith
Sent: Wednesday, February 19, 2014 2:05 PM
To: Topband at contesting.com
Subject: Re: Topband: Coax issues

Resolution: Eat more rabbit.

Thanks again for the pointer to the 259B being an answer. I now see 
it will do more than I knew, I didn't know about the advanced mode.

So... Last night I disconnected the coax in to the distal coax 
switch, it was not connected in the shack but I read a dead short 
with the fluke. This morning I went out and disconnected the coax so 
I could make a reading on both ends of the coax to see how well they 
jived. Found the instigator of the problem & that damned rabbit 
chewed mostly through the control cable to the coax switch. He must 
have bit into the voltage & that stopped him. 

However, he had chewed through the cable and had severed 3-4 wires of 
the 6 involved in switching and this disconnected the coax from the 
antenna. I was trying for 3B9/OE4AAC on Rodriguez & on 17 & using the 
amp. Amazingly the amp didn't have any issue but that energy had to 
go somewhere. I reattached the control wires at the switch, went back 
to the shack and read 515 feet to fault and that multiplied by the VF 
of .66 = 334 feet. 

Not knowing the exact footage of the coax, I went to the distal end 
and remeasured from there and kept getting different distances but 
one thing was for sure, it was easier getting the zero readings at 
the shack end. I cut off the connector & there still was a dead short 
in the coax so I cut away the roll of coax I used for a choke 
thinking it would be found there but no. I started the long grind of 
pulling up the coax from under the leaves & snow & came to something 
I'd forgotten about, I had run short of coax and needed to use a 
female/female jumper to add a length of coax to reach the switch box. 
I undid the sealant & could smell the burn. The end going to the 
house was undamaged but the other end had fried at the connector. I'd 
forgotten that the last part was foam coax & my long run used the 
hard plastic dielectric; it was the foam that melted & shorted.

All's well now with the coax and antennas, all read just where they 
should and I now have a vial of that Coyote urine under the switch to 
deter any more of those wascally wabbits.

Thanks again for the replies.

Gary
KA1J

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