"NM5K" wrote in message
...
On 9/10/2012 12:14 AM, wrote:
... the coax was pretty much gone..
It started raining, so I left before I could do more investigating..
At first I thought someone stole it.. But then I noticed random
pieces of coax laying on the ground.. I think critters, probably
squirrels, must have ate it.. I'll have to look more when I'm
back up there later..
But I know I'm going to have to redo everything, including new
coax if I want to continue to jibber jabber on the radio when I'm
there.
I plan to go back up there around the end of October.
One reason I think it was squirrels, is they had been eating off
areas of coax jacket in the past.. I'd have to wrap chewed up areas
with electrical tape to keep the water out.
I may have to coat my coax with something squirrels don't like. 
Depending on the distance (which might mean an unacceptable
added expense), you could run PVC. I put in a 10 ft satellite dish
in the mid 1980's, running all the cables in PVC because they
needed to be buried for appearance. (The stuff was called "direct
burial, but ... I'm a skeptic.) The point is that it was still fine after
about two decades when I decommissioned it about five years
ago in favor of digital cable. Both ends opened down to keep
moisture from dribbling in but yet letting the inside "breathe" with
temperature changes.
One caution: Just because the cable fits into the coax, you may
not be able to pull the whole length due to internal drag friction.
I had to cut my PVC and thread the cables throught the first
section, then a PVC union and then the second section. Finally,
I glued the cut ends into to the union. If you use big enough
PVC, you won't have my problem.
"Sal"
(KD6VKW)
"Vicious Killer Weasel"