On Sat, 18 Oct 2003 20:39:15 GMT, yea right wrote:

I would like to bury my coax for a distance of about 20ft. The location
consist of 6" of crushed decorative rocks over the top of very rocky soil.

I intend to take the LMR-400 coax and push it through a garden hose to add
a layer of protection. However, I am worried that condensation will
quickly fill the airspace of the hose with water and it will either
penetrate the coax outer jacket or interfere with the performance of it in
some unknown negative way.

Just an added note.
As you are going through crushed rock and rocky soil I'd use some form
of protection for the coax simply because it only takes someone
stepping on the crushed rock in the right place to cut the jacket.

Now the stuff will probably work for years even with the jacked holed.

The strange thing is: I just picked up a new 144/440 antenna to use
for the rig in the shop. I picked up a roof tripod, but got to
thinking the tower is only about 25 feet from the shop. So...I have
about a 25 foot buried run. I happened to have a bunch of 1/2 inch
PVC conduit. LMR-400 fits with lots of room to spare. Loose enough
that you could probably push it through 50 feet of the conduit. Just
be sure to bevel the inside of the ends so the coax doesn't catch on
them. You don't even have to use sealant on the conduit. It's sole
purpose is mechanical protection and it only costs a few dollars per
section. And you can push the coax around the sweeping 90s.

I now speak from experience using the 1/2 inch conduit on a slightly
longer run than you were talking about. I've also added another 100
feet of bare #2 ground wire and 4 8' ground rods CadWelded together.

I use a hydraulic drill I made which drills a hole deep enough to just
drop in the ground rod in about a minute (in clay).

Roger Halstead (K8RI EN73 & ARRL Life Member)
www.rogerhalstead.com
N833R World's oldest Debonair? (S# CD-2)


I can not flood the garden hose with petroleum oil as it will soon eat
through the PVC jacket of the coax or garden hose. Ideally, I would like
to flood the hose with the same stuff they put into underground cables. It
has a honey consistency and is not easily displaced by water. I was hoping
for some type of silicon oil but am unable to find anything similar at the
hardware store.

Anybody have any suggestions?