Tag Archives: coaxial cables

2015/06/19 (F) Roof Box

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The Apex roofers were back again this morning just before 8 AM and we were up and ready for them.  I made coffee but we deferred breakfast until after we settled the bill with owner Pat Davidson.  By 9 AM he knew what the added costs were over and above the base quote.  The major one was the 32 sheets of plywood they used to repair/replace bad areas of the roof deck.  He left around 10 AM and took half the crew with him to start another job.  The other four guys stayed behind and finished roofing the garage and cleaning up the job site.  The job was pretty much wrapped up by noon.  Sergio (the foreman) did the final walk-around and cleanup and left around 1 PM.  There is very little evidence that they had been here except for an attractive new roof and two skylights in the living room that light up the space in a nice way.

I spent the morning inventorying coaxial cables.  We have quite an assortment of 50 and 75 ohm cables in lengths from 1 to 100 feet.  I need to have all the necessary cables on hand when I climb the tower next week to remove and install antennas.  If we already had appropriate cables I wanted to use those instead of buying new ones.

The custom cable entry box from Chris at KF7P Metalwerks arrived today.  I opened it after lunch, which consisted of fresh apples and leftover black beans and rice.  We both agreed that the beans and rice dish was even better than when it was fresh.  We unpacked all of the parts that were stored inside the cable entry box and checked them off against the spreadsheet I used to order them.  Everything was there but I was initially concerned because the box was turned 90 degrees from what I ordered.  I specified a 16″ wide by 20″ tall box but got a 20″ wide by 16″ tall instead.  I suspect that Chris buys the boxes with the door/hinge already attached but it would have been nice to know that ahead of time.

We took the box outside and held it in place to see if it would be usable.  The lower left corner will hang down in front of the basement window in the sump pump room but that will be OK.  The horizontal orientation of the box will actually make it easier to get coaxial cables through the access holes in the bottom.

There were two a Morgan Lightning arrestors mounted on the copper back plane for amateur radio use; one for HF and one for VHF/UHF.  The UHF arrestor was upside down so I unscrewed it, rotated it 180 degrees, and screwed it back down.  The box also had a Morgan M-348 lightning arrestor.  I ordered an M-348B, which is the 12-wire version, but the installed arrestor had 12 terminals on top (3 strips of 4 each) plus one on each side.  There were no instructions, however, on how to wire it up so I sent Chris an e-mail regarding the anomalies and missing information.

While I was working on that e-mail, and a couple from Josh at Coach Supply Direct, we got a call from Curtis Coleman of RVillage.  The development team had launched some new features and he wanted to walk me through them.  He had just been to Prevost in Nashville for some repairs on his tag axle brakes and was headed back to Cleveland, Ohio.  He thought he might be headed in our general direction after that.

I spent some time thinking about how to mount the cable entry box on the east wall of the house which is sided in a shiplap fashion, i.e., the horizontal siding boards are angled (not plumb) and overlapped.  I needed a hole saw and arbor for my 1/2″ drill to drill the holes for the two 2″ conduits that will pass from the box through the bond into the sump pump room in the basement.  I probably already have one but I cannot get to most of the stuff in the garage and can’t afford to delay getting this box mounted; there are too many other things that need to get done that require this box to be in place first.

I was suffering from a decided lack of patience which is not the proper frame of mind for working on scale drawings of custom furniture so I went to Lowe’s to get a hole saw.  The fitting measured 2-3/4″ OD and I decided to get a 3″ hole saw just to make sure the hole would be big enough.  While I was at the store I considered how I might use different materials to mount the box.  I ended up buying a 36″ length of 1″ square aluminum tube and some stainless steel lag screws, bolts, washers, and Nylok nuts. My plan was to cut the tube into two 18″ pieces and use them in a vertical orientation between the box and the house.  They would span multiple boards, creating a plumb mounting surface, and provide support for the lower left corner which would otherwise be unsupported.

When I got back to the house I took the tube out to see how it would work.  The idea was a good one but the 18″ lengths would be too short.  I bought the only piece of 1″ tube that Lowe’s had so I knew I would have to find another one somewhere else.  Linda suggested that we try the Lowe’s in New Hudson after breakfast tomorrow but I was still feeling impatient about the whole thing.

I had a long chat with Michele Henry from Phoenix Paint.  I then relaxed with a small glass of Moscato, a nice pre-meal wine, while Linda prepared a wonderful dish for dinner of roasted red potatoes with onions, garlic, rosemary, and power greens.  It was a simple dish but so delicious and hearty.

The meal concluded and the table cleared I went to The Home Depot in Howell where I found a 48″ length of 1″ square aluminum tube.  If 24 inches turns out to be long enough to support the box the way I want I will cut the 48″ piece in half and return the 36″ piece to Lowe’s.  I called Chuck on the drive home to follow up on a text message I sent him yesterday regarding the delivery of our new refrigerator to his bus garage in Novi.

Feeling like I had finally accomplished something today we relaxed for an hour and then settled in to watch a movie.  Linda had borrowed the DVD of Wild, starring Reese Witherspoon, from the Howell Library earlier in the week and we reserved this evening as movie night.

My goal for tomorrow is to get the cable entry box installed.  That sets the stage for climbing the tower and installing three antennas once I have the proper coax cables and some rope to temporarily guy the tower.  But those details will wait until Monday as family is coming to brunch on Sunday for Father’s Day and a belated birthday celebration for our daughter.

 

2015/06/13 (S) On to Illinois

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It has turned out to be a wet June so far and we had more heavy rain last night.  In spite of waking up during the night I was up at 7:30 AM and made coffee.  Everyone else got up as suited their level of rest and we sat around chatting for a while.  Ron put a load of laundry in the washing machine and then we sat down to a light breakfast.

Ron and Mary spent most of the rest of the morning repacking all of their stuff for the drive to northwest Illinois and their week-long bicycle ride.  FedEx Home Delivery delivered the Cyclo 5-Pro Mark II Dual Head Orbital Polisher I ordered along with all of the foam pads and detailing chemicals.

Ron retrieved their laundry from the dryer and after they finished packing we had a light lunch.  By 1 PM they were ready to load up the car so we helped get their bags out.  After a brief “farewell and safe travels” they were on their way.  They had a five hour drive but would gain an hour as they entered the Central Time Zone so they would be at their motel by 5 PM local time with plenty of daylight and time to eat dinner.

Linda took a short nap and then went for a walk.  I read through the manual for our SureCall Fusion5s cell phone booster and was part way through the manual for the Cyclo 5 when I decided to take a nap.  Linda returned from her walk and a little while later a USPS mail carrier delivered the OTA TV antenna I ordered from Antennas Direct.  All I am waiting for now is the cable entrance box I ordered from KF7P Metalwerks.

Once the cable entrance box arrives I will have a bit of a project.  First I will need to drill two 2″ holes through the east wall of the house and into the sump pump closet in the northeast corner of the basement, mount the box to the wall, and ground it to the outside ground rod by the tower.  I may also need to install additional ground rods.  I will then need to climb the tower by the house and do the following:

  1. take down the old OTA TV antenna and rotator;
  2. mount the new OTA TV antenna and aim it;
  3. mount the amplifier for the OTA TV antenna;
  4. attach a short piece of 75 Ohm co-ax from the antenna output to the amplifier input and weatherproof the connections;
  5. attach a longer piece of 75 Ohm co-ax to the output of the amplifier and weatherproof the connection;
  6. mount the outside antenna for the cell phone booster system;
  7. attach one end of a 50′ piece of LMR-400 or RG-213 co-ax to the cell phone antenna and weatherproof it;
  8. unmount our Diamond SG7900 2m/70cm ham radio base station antenna and remount it at the top of the tower;
  9. attach a 50-to-60 foot length of LMR-400 or RG-213 co-ax to the ham radio antenna;
  10. dress and secure all of the coaxial cables with plastic cable ties (zip ties).

Once I am done with tower work I will need to do the following to complete the installation:

  1. install the lightning arrestors in the cable entrance box for the cell phone booster and OTA TV (?) co-ax cables;
  2. route each of the co-ax cables into the bottom of the cable entrance box and attach them to appropriate lighting arrestors;
  3. attach additional co-ax cables to the lightning arrestors and feed them through the 2″ holes into the basement;
  4. mount the Surecall Fusion5s in the sump pump room and connect the co-ax for the outside antenna and the power supply;
  5. run a 50′ length of LMR-400 from the sump pump room across the basement ceiling and up through an old vertical furnace exhaust chase to the attic;
  6. drill a hole in the ceiling of the main floor hallway near the chase;
  7. mount the inside done antenna for the cell phone booster system to the ceiling with the co-ax dongle in the attic;
  8. connect the antenna dongle to the co-ax coming up from the basement;
  9. run additional co-ax from the sump pump room to the ham shack;
  10. run additional co-ax from the sump pump room to the video distribution point in the laundry room (or directly to the locations of the two TV sets);
  11. turn on the Fusion5s booster (transceiver), adjust the gain (if needed) and test it with our phones and Mi-Fi;
  12. test the TV sets (and hopefully not have to go back up the tower to reposition the antenna);
  13. connect our Icom IC-7000 amateur radio and test the antenna connection.

As I wrote out this list it occurred to me that I need to make a list of all of the co-ax types/lengths/connectors I need and that, at a minimum, I probably need to order a length of LMR-400 orRG-213 co-ax cable and the proper N-connectors to complete the ham radio antenna connections.  It also occurred to me that I might be able to do some of the inside wiring while I am waiting for the cable entrance box to arrive.  Also, once the TVs are connected Linda can scan for channels and communicate with me with our HT ham radios if I need to change the aim of the antennas on the tower.

All of this reminded me that I need to follow-up with a Bratcher Electric on running a new 100 Amp main feed from the transfer switch to the panel in the furnace room in the garage.  I also need to order some new split foam fillers from Critter-Guard and new electrical hardware for connecting the bus to the toad from EZ-Connector in California.

I must have been sleeping lightly and dreamed all of these details because I got up from my nap around 5:30 PM, finished reading the manual for the Cyclo 5, and then took a shower and got dressed for dinner.  Barb Spera had called Linda yesterday to see if we were available for dinner this evening.  They had really enjoyed our meal at La Marsa in Brighton a couple of weeks ago and wanted to go again so we agreed to meet them there at 7 PM.  We did not have to wait for a table and our waiter, Najheem (Naa-gheem), was delightful.  Barbara had the Koshary again, and Chuck had the Chicken Shwarma with tabbouleh salad, while we split an order of spicy vegetarian ghallabah with rice and a salad.  I had a mango smoothie and we all enjoyed the swarm pocket bread and garlic spread.

It was after 9 PM when we got home and we headed off to bed at 10.  We knew Ron and Mary had arrived at their destination because Ron played a Scrabble word.  Linda had also checked that our daughter and son-in-law were on their way back from Las Vegas.