Hustler 4BTV continued.
The days finished product |
Once again we had a nice weather friendly antenna installation day on Monday. It was time to run the coax out to the vertical antenna mounting pole. I chose to run RG8X coax, the main reason for this was I had lots of it on hand. From the house to the the vertical I dug a trench about 16 inches deep and I was fortunate the ground was nice and soft and tree root free.
The RG8X coax was placed in 3/4 inch PVC electrical pipe and at each end for the PVC pipe I affixed ENT tubing. This is very hardy plastic tubing that usually is encased in concrete and used to pass electrical wires in. Now you may wonder why I did not just use ENT for the complete job? The main reason is I had PVC pipe on hand and ENT here is either sold in 10 or 30 foot rolls. If I chose 30 feet I would have a majority of it leftover and ENT is pricey as well.
I now attached the base section of the Hustler 4BTV to the ground pipe but before doing so I ordered from DX Engineering the SO-239 add on kit. This is a fantastic kit made of stainless steel and allows a PL-239 connection and it can be mounted in 3 different directions. Also for all the connections I picked up some pure copper anti seize compound. This allows great connectivity and also very good for all stainless steel connections.
As an added precaution I wrapped the screw located on the bottom of the 4BTV antenna with self amalgamating splicing tape. I also wrapped the PL-239 connection with the same tape. I find water has a way of getting in at the most inconvenient times so I like to make it very difficult for this to happen.
My next step is to install the radials and tomorrow the weather man is telling me it's a great weather day to put down some radials.
See:
https://www.nk7z.net/notes-on-tuning-a-6btv/
For some notes on tuning a 6BTV, which should work for your setup…
Good morning Dave, thanks very much for the link. I read it over during my morning coffee and it was a great help!
73,
Mike
VE9KK
WATER will migrate through the coax jacket over time. It happened to me.
The shield will turn green and sticky. I had to trash the coax and
Barry it directly. Sharp stick in the eye learnin5…
Jerry
Good morning Gerry, thanks for stopping by the blog and taking the time to comment. I agree as water is a very funny thing and over time can find its way into anything. This is why I placed the coax in conduit as when it does fail it will be easy to remove and replace.
73 and have a great weekend,
Mike
VE9KK