I must disagree with you on using electrical tape to hold up coax on a
beam or tower.
Here in South Florida, electrical tape can't stand up to the heat and
rain, and it will eventually fall off. Same for tie wraps.
I've found that using shielded electrical wire to be the best way of
fastening coax to the mast or boom, etc. It won't fall off!
On Mar 21, 2009, at 7:45 PM, kb7dqh@donobi.net wrote:
>
> properly fixed to the antenna boom. Oddly enough good old fashioned
> vinyl electrical tape is the best material to use for this purpose.
> Properly wrapped and layered, it will hold the coax to the boom with
> strength equal to the cable and may last longer than the cable or the
> antenna for that matter! Plastic zipties tend to kink or dent the
> cable
> if drawn up too tightly, and most are sensitive to ultraviolet rays
> from
> the Sun, (even some of the "black" ones) and they will break over time
> unless protected from sunlight (with the same black electrical tape
> that
> would hold the cable just fine on its own:-)
>
> My rover installations have experienced more problems with trees
> damaging
> antenna elements and the occasional loosening of antenna hardware,
> or in
> some cases the outright failure of antenna support hardware...
>
> In the one case where the rotator came apart and all the rover
> antennae
> went over the back of the vehicle at 60 MPH, the cables taped to the
> booms
> kept the whole mess more or less together!
>
> Eric
> KB7DQH
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