Hello:
Can anyone offer an opinion on how well a good quality name brand coax (going from house to a simple receive-only shortwave antenna in backyard) will "typically" last if buried ?
Not the coax types called "buriable", just the regular stuff.
Will probably run in a pvc conduit, but was wondering about if I didn't.
Anybody have any experience with just burying the typical PVC covered coax stuff about 6 inches or so deep ? Think it'll last 10 years ?
Thanks, Bob
If it's buried directly in the ground or in a conduit, it'll get just as wet. If you don't want to buy direct burial coax, run it in a conduit to make it easy to replace if it goes bad
See you everywhere Bob!
Generally speaking it wont last 10 years being buried on its own. Water ingress is the killer. Unless you run a transmitter though you may not even notice it for several years.
How long it lasts depends on many things like soil moisture, acidity and even seismic activity!
I'll make some other comments on antennas in the other NG.
Cheers Bob
Robert11 wrote:
I use Home depot coax, its under 50 bucks for 500 feet.
I put a temporary dish here and just buried the coax, it was a short term fix that lasted a year till I trimmed a tree, longer than planned. by a year the cable was bad, water got to it,
run in conduit of plastic pipe, its cheap and no digging needed if it ever needs replaced.
if you run conduit and keep water out coax will last forever.
l would strong suggest using a coax which has a non-contaminating jacket. Normal PVC jacket's plastisizers leach into the dialectric over time and increase attenuation. There are a number of direct-bury types of coax available, including RG-213 which would be overkill for use with only a receiving antenna. You can e-mail directly, and I will give you some suggestions. Remove the NO SPAM from my address.
Don Allen e-mail: snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com
If you are just going to use it for receiving, it won't matter if the jacket rots and the shield braid corrodes. You mainly need an insulated wire. I would give it even 20 or 30 years as long as you don't drive over it.
Dick
Hi, Bob:
Yup, been scrounging for information. Just getting back into my sw listening hobby after my retirement. Now have more time for it, as well as driving the wife crazy.
For a newbie like me, these forums have been an incredible source of really good suggestions, thanks to folks like you. I really and truly appreciate all the time so many of you have taken to help me out.
They are admittedly pretty basic type questions, but hard to find answers by just doing a Google on them.
Some info there, of course, but the Newsgroups certainly supplement the Google searches very well, and in many respects much better as there is more focus.
Part of my problem has been that my questions are, often, so very basic in nature.
Interesting, though, that there is (so) often disagreement, so perhaps there is some general-learning for all going on too. Hope so.
Much thanks, and best regards, Bob
The next time you see a cable service tech in your area, stop and ask him questions. They will be more than happy to give you answers, as long as they have the time.
Disagree with you Dick
Corrosion starts on the outside surface of the wire and at RF frequencies thats where most of the signal is carried (called skin effect) This is the basic reason you use fatter cables and silver plating etc at higher frequencies.
The dielectric will also become lossy with water ingress even if you ignore the impedence change consequences. It becomes a resitive load in other words.
The question you have to ask is how much loss can the RX system handle. If the interest is in AM broadcast down around 1Mhz where the atmospheric/manmade noise is stronger than anything the receiver noise and cable loss will be, your method would probably be okay. At higher frequencies though the margin becomes less and less to the point where the natural "hiss" of the radio w/out the antenna is all you'll hear in the absence of a "real" signal. For receiving you need a good signal vs noise ratio.
Cheers Bob
Dick wrote:
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