The most harmful thing to most plastics outdoors is sunlight. I've had
some PE jacketed coax outside for many years without noticeable
degradation. However, it gets buried in the grass after a couple of
years so doesn't get a whole lot of direct sun. Clear PE will
deteriorate fairly quickly, but black coloring prevents penetration of
the UV light, so I'd expect black PE jacketed cable to last a very long
time. Rain, snow, and temperature extremes aren't a problem.

Roy Lewallen, W7EL

Robert11 wrote:
Hello:

Have started running cvoax from a receve-only antenna to the house.
The coax has a Polyethylene (PE) Outer jacket.
With this PE jacket, it's upposed to be buriable.

It's becoming a real job for me at my age to dig a slit trench, even a
shallow one.
But, I can easily just lay the coax on the surface, without any reql danger
of anyone
stepping on it, etc. It's in a pretty out of the way area.

I realize that burying it is undoubtedly best, but in a practical
sense, how well does a PE outer jacket stand up if just laying on the ground
?
Would be subjected, of course, to rain, and also buried in snow during the
winter.

Again, it's receive only.

Thanks,
Bob