I fired up all the low band receive antennas about 45 minutes ago to check noise floor readings and run through all the antennas to make sure everything was "normal". The N and NE directions on the BSEF-8 160 array were noisy and poping like QRN so I knew something was up and I took a walk in the nice, warm 32 degree weather and 10 mph north wind to see what’s up.

With all of my receive antennas deployed I have around 7,500 feet of RG-6 and RG-11 cable. Since I take things up in late spring, I just lay all the cables on top of the ground. I use flooded cable because I occasionally will have some bite marks on one or two of the cables, but nothing that is severe or needing repair.

When I got out to the array and started walking down the individual elements, I discovered one VERY PO’ed varmit had strolled through and didn’t like the fact the cable was not dinner and took its anger and frustration out on the tuned input boxes and cable on two of the elements.

Nice timing just before the CQWW 160 contest this weekend but at least this didn’t happen during the contest and I have time for repairs.

73 Joel W5ZN