[TowerTalk] Buriable coax

[Jon Casamajor]

Tom et al,

 I installed my HDX572 tower  in 1988 with a 8'x5'x5' foundation.  I bought
it used along with 100' of what had been previously buried Andrews 1/2"
Heliax. I buried the Heliax across an irrigated lawn to the tower. Our soil
is well drained and light btw. I've never had a problem in our dry climate
but I have had to service the well sealed connectors twice since 1988 as
they have gotten a bit "funky" and have exhibited some SWR changes.  

I also have a 100' length of LMR-400 direct buried out to my secret weapon
vertical with no issues.  My biggest threat is gophers who tend to chew on
stuff that they run into in their subterranean travels. So far, no problems
with those damn things.tomatoes yes, cables not so much.  Maybe the active
RF flowing through my buried cables keeps them at bay. I wonder if that
would work to keep the morons off my tomatoes? <grin>

 

 73, Jon

 K6EL

Date: Sun, 18 Jul 2010 13:25:52 -0700 (PDT)

From: Tom Anderson <andersonww5l at sbcglobal.net>

Subject: [TowerTalk] Buriable coax?

To: towertalk at contesting.com

Message-ID: <868640.76218.qm at web82403.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

 

Is there any truly "buriable" coax or does one need to snake the "buriable"
staff through a piece of buried PVC pipe.  I'm installing a vertical in my
back yard and was wondering which was best?  A note, the area where I live
is permeated by underground springs that ooze water.

 

When I dug the 6 ft. hole for my 50 ft crank up in 1992, it filled up
overnight with water and when I called the city thinking we may have hit a
waterline someplace.  Their inspectors came out and said this area was
inpregnated with underground springs.  Once we pumped out the hole you could
see the water dribbling in from many locations along the sides of the square
hole.  A friend of mine who owed me a favor dug the hole for free with a
backhole he owned, so we had to push all the dirt back in.

 

One thing we did find was a steering wheel to a 1960 Chevy pickup truck at
the 6 ft level.  No this isn't a hoiusing developement built on top of trash
dump, according to the city.  Never did figure that one out hi hi.

 

Finally hired a professional tower installer who dug the hole for the
concrete base (A TriEX W-51 crankup), set the base, and pumped in the
concrete all within 10 hours so it wouldn't fill up with water again.

 

73 de Tom, WW5L