[TowerTalk] Chipmunks

[K8RI]

On 1/13/2012 3:54 PM, Art Trampler wrote:
> ALVIN!!!!
>
> --- On Fri, 1/13/12, Bill Ogden<ogden at us.ibm.com>  wrote:
>
>
> From: Bill Ogden<ogden at us.ibm.com>
> Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] Chipmunks
> To: towertalk at contesting.com
> Date: Friday, January 13, 2012, 9:52 AM
>
>
> Chipmunks got into my conduit (3" PVC) between my shack and my tower and
> did a job on cable insulation. They shorted several wires in the SteppIR
> control cable (blowing driver chips in the controller) and even ate bits of
> the SHIELD from several places in several coax cables.  (There were
> different types of coax, and the chipmunks worked on all of them. No one
> type, such as the direct burial cables, was immune.)
>
> I am replacing the controller cable and the main coax to my beam. I cut out
> the bad parts of other coax and spliced them (using proper plugs and the
> short barrel connectors) -- these are for 80/40 antennas and now check OK
> when measured going to a dummy load.
Here the conduit ends in a large NEMA enclosure.  Photo 7 from the top 
and the bottom 4 on the page 
http://www.rogerhalstead.com/ham_files/cablebox.htm.  There are no 
"open" openings in the enclosure. They are either conduit, compression 
fittings, or coax bulkhead connectors.  The old NEMA enclosure had a 
conduit stub, but critters were getting in that and particularly in the 
winter when the snow would reach or cover the opening of the stub. Of 
course in summer it was a prime target for paper wasps.

>
> I'll do a better job of blocking the ends of the conduit.
>
> QUESTION: Will moth balls in the conduit help? Will they harm the coax
> outer cover?  (Unfortunately, the neighborhood cats are too well fed ---
> they usually just watch the chipmunks.)
My big ol' "used to be Tomcat" is way over fed on chipmunk steaks.  If 
they move he's on 'em, but he ignores the results of mechanical 
disposal.  Those critters are really destructive.  I had to start 
leaving the cat out longer than I like, to get rid of them.  They 
actually dug down in front of the egress window and into the weep tile.  
They must have built an apartment complex down there.  It took over 1  
1/2 of those large cans of expandable foam (the stuff that gets rigid) 
to fill the burrow.  We've had no problems with them since then. At 
least if they made it to the sump in the basement they couldn't climb 
out of it.  Unfortunately they'll probably be back next spring.

73

Roger (K8RI)