[Elecraft] [OT] Drain Wire on CAT6 RFI resistant cable?

[David Christ]

When I was doing that kind of work the premises wiring was done with 
solid but all the jumpers and anything that was plugged and unplugged 
regularly was stranded.   The solid was more prone to breaking at the 
plug than the stranded was.

Our practice was to have the return of a circuit  paired with the 
signal.  For ordinary RS-232 Tx would be on one pair and Rx on 
another.  the second wire in each pair would be connected to signal 
ground.  Yes, that meant that there were multiple wires running 
signal ground.  For things like RS-422  that were balanced, both the 
+ and - were always in the same pair.   That was our plant policy. 
Jim K9YC can tell us if it was a good policy.  He knows what is best 
more than I do.

David K0LUM

At 8:31 PM -0700 6/7/11, Brian - N5BCN wrote:
>Thanks to Don and Jim for their input on building a RFI resistant control
>cable.
>
>I've been informed by another poster that it's recommended to use stranded
>CAT5 or 6 verses solid wire.  The poster believes stranded wire would be
>more resistant to flexing, plugging, unplugging, etc. than solid wire.
>
>One last question on this issue:
>
>I've come across some nice (stranded) CAT6 cable that has a shield and a
>drain wire.  I'll have a decision to make on what to do with the shield, but
>is there a consensus (or not) on what to do with the drain wire?
>
>73 N5BCN - Brian
>