[TowerTalk] Two questions

[Gene Smar]

Peter:

     It depends on how straight the run to the tower is.  If it's fairly straight, you can easily pull through either material.  If it's somewhat curvy due to terrain or changes in direction, the smooth PVC will be easier to pull through, provided you use sweeps and not elbows at the curves.

     Either material will suffice to protect your cables from potential damage due to heaving (those rocks are sharp).  And water will get into whatever you use so you will have to drill drain holes into the underside of the PVC at the low points.  You might also want to lay a bed of rough gravel underneath the entire length of the slotted flexible drainline, or just underneath the drain holes in the PVC, to act as a sump pit for drainage.

     As for a source of copper sheet/plate, try a local scrap yard, if they'll let you scrounge around their copper piles.  Or you might try http://www.onlinemetals.com/merchant.cfm?id=87&step=2&top_cat=87 .  I bought some stainless sheet from them a few years ago.  The URL I pasted above is their copper page.


73 de
Gene Smar  AD3F


From: Peter Dougherty <w2irt at comcast.net>
Date: 2008/04/18 Fri AM 11:07:20 CDT
To: towertalk at contesting.com
Subject: [TowerTalk] Two questions

Hi all,

As part of getting some yard work done this year, I'd like to run 
some cable about 100 feet underground to my inverted-L feedpoint. 
Currently I'm using direct-bury Davis-RF coax in a shallow (6") 
trench. I'd prefer to put in a conduit and run everything through 
there instead. I'm thinking of 3 coax runs to accommodate my 
inverted-L, a 40/80 Butternut vertical and maybe one more for 
expansion purposes later.

The question here is should I run solid PVC for this (plumbing white 
or electrical-grey), or should I be using flexible plastic drainage 
line with slots cut in it do drain moisture?

Also, does anybody know a source for sheet-copper? I'm putting my 
single-point ground panel together in the next few weeks and the only 
one sold commercially for that purpose (Polyphaser's) seems 
prohibitively expensive. I'm thinking 24 x 36" or so, 12 gauge thickness.

Could I substitute aluminium sheeting instead of copper? Stainless, 
perhaps??  I will be running 2" copper strap to the bonded ground 
system outside, so I'm thinking "galvanic action" between copper 
strapping and aluminum sheet.



Regards,

Peter,
W2IRT 

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