[TowerTalk] Help wanted: Removing Prodelin hardline jacket

[Steve Maki]

Just had a thought - the right pizza cutter wheel might work for the 
lengthwise cut!

-Steve K8LX

On 9/19/2022 11:50 AM, Steve Maki wrote:
> Absent a prep tool made for the cable, you're stuck with using a utility 
> knife with a NEW blade. After you score the jacket with your pipe 
> cutter, make the lengthwise knife cut slowly using a fair bit of 
> pressure. It will take a few passes. I wouldn't worry too much if the 
> shield gets nicked a little on the lengthwise cut. You do NOT want it to 
> be nicked by the pipe cutter though. Jim's suggestion of heating the 
> jacked might help some. If you only need to remove a 1/2" of jacket, a 
> good technique is to simply use downward pressure (a ton) with a rocking 
> motion of the blade.
> 
> I thought I'd had my hands on just about every hardline cable known to 
> man, but yours is the 2nd recent reference to Prodelin cable. I've never 
> heard of it. Prodelin was a big name in the satellite earth station 
> industry for many years. Most cable used in that segment was 75 ohms. 
> But early on when the first downconversion happened inside the building, 
> they used 50 ohm cable to transport the 4 GHZ LNA output. Usually it was 
> mere RG-8, but on long runs it would be hardline.
> 
> -Steve K8LX
> 
> On 9/19/2022 10:43 AM, Tyler Stewart via TowerTalk wrote:
>> I’ve got a bunch of this old cable I acquired through FRC that’s been 
>> buried for 25 years and now I want to use it!
>> It’s about 1-1/4” with a spiral aluminum shield. And really tough 
>> plastic jacket.  I don’t know if it’s age related, but I’m having a 
>> heck of a time trying to remove it.   I used a pipe cutter for the 
>> initial scoring,  but otherwise just hacking at it with a utility 
>> knife tryin not to gouge the aluminum shield.
>> Suggestions?
>> 73,  Ty K3MM
>>
>>
>> Sent from the all new AOL app for iOS
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