Hi Gary,
I use outdoor direct burial Cat 5 flooded cable for many of my
control lines. Many of the inexpensive outdoor Cat 5 cables use
copper plated aluminum wires which are very fragile. Suggest
you use only Cat 5 cable with solid copper wires.
73
Frank
W3LPL
----- Original Message -----
From: "Gary Smith" <Gary@ka1j.com>
To: rfi@contesting.com
Sent: Wednesday, June 29, 2016 3:43:50 PM
Subject: [RFI] Control cable
I have a 360' run to my antennas. The coax is 7/8" 50 ohm hardline.
There is an Ameritron RCS-8V remote coax switch at the end which lets
me select which antenna wire to use. I'm using flat/ribbon CAT6 wire
on the ground to control this.
I also have a HI-Z Triangular array 100' feet from the house. It uses
75 ohm flooded coax and the controller uses the same flat ribbon CAT6
wire as the Ameritron switch. Both runs of ribbon are covered by 3-4
years worth of leaves. There are ferrites on both ends of the two
ribbon wires.
I would like to find a better replacement than flat ribbon wire.
Considering the long distance to the Tx antenna, I might could find a
decent deal on fleabay. I'm sure twisted pairs would be a better
option than ribbon. Is there a specific cable known to be good I
ought to keep on the lookout for?
There is a tribander on the roof with Texcom R82 cable with 8 strand
wire connected to the rotor. I'd bought this from "The Wireman" I
think, and it was sold as proper for rotor control. I assume it is
considered adequate.
I'm not having any control issues requiring a wire change, the
problem is I'm trying to do everything I can to eliminate any source
of RFI from my equipment and shack. When I listen with the Tx
antennas, I hear much less RFI than I do with the closer HI-Z and I
hear the most with the Tribander which is for all practical purposes,
useless because of the RFI. The RFI is most notable from 40 meters &
up and is a constant, homogeneous hash, present 24/7 and it's easy to
see its presence with the P3. I have walked the house with an AM
radio and haven't found anything, still need to find a radio that
hears higher on the band to walk the neighborhood.
That said, I do think better control wires are needed and I can
convert the existing CAT6 wires into 4 more radials for 160.
Suggestions?
Thanks & 73,
Gary
KA1J
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