[TowerTalk] Romex as rotator cable

[Healy, Rus]

Gang,

Just wanted to relate a success story. Yesterday I connected a 500-foot run
of 14-2 (with ground, of course) house wire--two runs of cable in
parallel--to the Tailtwister on the back tower. The six conductors handle
all but the capacitor leads. The start/run capacitor is mounted in a vitamin
bottle under the rotator plate (as I've been doing with my other Tailtwister
for over three years). The rotator works just fine, and the cal pot is far
from the end of its adjustment range.

FWIW, I bought the house wire as a 1000-foot spool at Home Depot for $62 and
cut it in half to get the two 500-foot lengths I needed. As I recall this
was a little cheaper than buying two 500-foot rolls. In retrospect, it was a
pain to run out the entire spool to cut it in half, even though it is 400
feet from the house to the road and the driveway is straight and fairly
level. If I had it to do again, I'd spend a few extra bucks to avoid the
extra 30 minutes' work and the higher grunt factor of halving the single
length of wire.

--73, Rus, K2UA

__________________________
Rus Healy
Engineering Group Leader, System Test and Verification
Wideband Product Group
Adaptive Broadband Corporation
Rochester, New York
k2ua@adaptivebroadband.com

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