[TowerTalk] Conduit for cables to the tower?

[Daron J. Wilson]

> This just does NOT compute!
> That's 1200 feet of Cat5, or nearly 10,000 feet of wire.
> You said this was a wireless project?
> This must be along the lines of the paperless society by 1985, right?

It often amazes me how much wire we get to use for wireless projects :)

> Dammn,, I'm glad I made the comment about the pull ropes in the tower,
 > I'd heard about the 'mule tape' but I guess I was to 'proud' to ask a
> contractor
> about how it's used, I followed the links on the discussion, and I know
> exactly
> how to use it and will order on monday from the local electrical supply
> house
> for a job I'm doing for the city.  I've got 4 at 300' runs with Cat5 to
> underground for a wireless project i'm into.

I hope you are at least pulling Cat5e since Cat5 doesn't meet the current
standards, and I hope if you are going underground with it you are using an
outdoor rated (preferably gel filled) product, AND I hope you are no more
than 300' from patch panel to patch panel to be standards compliant.  Fiber
is so cheap and avoids so many of the little pitfalls when you go
underground and get near the 300' limit, I might be worth considering it.

We're moving into a new building with our ham repeaters, I'm putting two
runs of Cat5e shielded and a run of run of 6 strand multimode fiber up the
tower to a waterproof box.  It will have power in it, and house some wifi
bridges for linking and an access point, and who knows what else.  But, the
fiber is definitely a lot easier to deal with as it enters the
communications facility (i.e. no grounding, no lightning protection, etc).

73

Daron Wilson, RCDD
Oregon Coast Repeater Group W7GC