[TowerTalk] Blackened Sheild on Belden Coax?

[Mike Foerster]

I just put some connectors on some coax that I "inherited" with the used
tower that I'm putting
up.

It came with 2 chunks of coax, 90' of Belden 8837, RG8U and 100 ft of
"Tandy" RG8U.

The loss measurement is very low on both, about 1 dB at 28 MHz.  (nominal
for this coax)

I was surprised to see that the copper shield on the Belden coax had turned
very black
when I stripped it to put the connector on the end that was cut.  I
suspected some moisture,
so I cut it back several times, about 2 ft, still just as black.

I ended up scraping the blacken part and put connector on it (wrapped with
some very
fine wire and soldered that to it, then put on the connector).  I'll use it
for my 80m dipole,
but I'm puzzled as to why it would turn black.

I would guess that it's about 6 years old.

Mike


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