[TowerTalk] Andrew FSJ4-50 issues

[Ian White]

It's quite possible that only the outer jacket has been damaged,
somewhere up the tower, but not the solid copper shield. This would
allow water to run down between the jacket and the shield, ending up
inside the connector, but the main length of cable coming down the tower
may still be electrically OK. 

A quick-and-dirty fix to allow the water to drain away is to cut away a
few inches of  the jacket near the lower end of the cable (like
ring-barking a tree). At the bottom end of the cutaway section, make a
new water seal by taping the jacket tightly onto the exposed copper
shield, but leave the top end of the cutaway section free to drain. It
isn't pretty but it would keep you going until the better weather. 

73 from Ian GM3SEK


>-----Original Message-----
>From: TowerTalk [mailto:towertalk-bounces at contesting.com] On Behalf
>Of Peter Voelpel
>Sent: 16 January 2016 15:39
>To: 'Jim Thomson'
>Cc: towertalk at contesting.com
>Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] Andrew FSJ4-50 issues
>
>Hi Jim,
>
>Never heard about the cable not being for outdoor use.
>It is essential to fill the body of the plugs with silicone grease to
>prevent the accumulation of condensed water.
>Connectors may not be left unprotected from the weather even for one
>day.
>I use that stuff across my rotators together with a few CF12-50 cables.
>Main feed lines are LCF78-50 or RG218.
>In total 13 such cables are turned on my 4 towers, 8x LCF12-50, 5x
FSJ4-50.
>
>73
>Peter, DJ7WW
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: TowerTalk [mailto:towertalk-bounces at contesting.com] On Behalf
>Of Jim
>Thomson
>Sent: Samstag, 16. Januar 2016 14:57
>To: towertalk at contesting.com
>Subject: [TowerTalk] Andrew FSJ4-50 issues
>
>A buddy is having issues with his Andrew  FSJ4-50   flexible coax.
It's
>being used on a rotating tower.
>He used  FSJ4-50  from each yagi to the tower, then spliced  ( via a
male to
>female  7-16 din)  into
>more  FSJ4-50  heading down the tower.  At the bottom of the rotating
>tower
>is the remote switch box.
>On the 40m coax connector, at the  remote switch box, there is water
>coming
>out of it !   The splice
>was encased in  heat shrink, with the glue glop inside.   Also at each
>balun.
>
>We think the cable coming down the tower is toast.  Is this  FSJ4-50
>intended to be used outdoors ??
>I looked at some old postings  from 2006, and it appears that FSJ4-50
was
>to
>be used indoors only, for
>jumpers etc.  The other postings indicated it did not have any UV
protection
>on the outer jacket.
>
>I THINK I also read somewhere a long time ago that  FSJ4-50  was prone
to
>water ingress.
>
>Does anybody know the real story on this stuff ?    It can be replaced
with
>the rigid andrew  1/2
>inch regular heliax.  It doesn't have to flex for this
application....on a
>rotating tower.    At the base
>of the tower, where the remote switch box is, there is a single,
flexible
>piece of coax, used
>for rotating the tower, like 213-U...then the 213-U is spliced into
more
>(normal rigid)  1/2 inch heliax,
>and off to the shack area.
>
>The concern here is... if FSJ4-50 is pone to water ingress, then he may
well
>be in for more problems,
>since all the coax runs down the tower are  also  FSJ4-50
>
>Thanks in advance....  Jim  VE7RF
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