Topband: Rats, Rodents AND Beavers

[K0EKL at frontier.com]

Mice, rats, beavers? Kid stuff! I just found that a black bear had been
gnawing on my Andrew 1/2 hard line.

The SWR on my 160 vertical was off the chart so I started inspecting the
feedline this past Saturday. The antenna is 200 feet from the house. The
soil is too rocky to bury anything except with a large backhoe so I ran
hardline across the forest floor to my 160 wire vertical. (Supported by a
couple 120' white pines.) I thought hardline would surely be safe from
rodent damage but I didn't count on Ursus Americanus. I had to scrap about
20 feet of cable that had punctures clear through the plastic jacket and
copper shield. In at least one place the shield and center were shorted
together resulting in a dead short.

de K0EKL
Ely, MN, where bears are numerous and DXers are few.