[Lowfer] Coax Type?

[David Willmore]

> For my new 22Mtr dipole, I chose an outdoors balun setup under the 300
> Ohm down lead. The local cable co. "supplied" me with the coax for input
> to the basement shack.The coax is the type for burial I believe: having
> only a telephone insignia and no nomenclature on the hardened outer
> cover. Inside is that sticky stuff on the shielding. Before affixing the
> F-connectors I cleaned off the goo w/ alcohol.

The stuff is called 'icky' in the industry. :)  It sure is, too.  It's there
to keep moisture from intruding into the coax in case of a jacket break.  It
sure is nasty stuff to get off.  The idea is for it *not* to be soluable by
most any normal stuff as that would compromise its abilit to repell the same
stuff in the case of a jacket break. :)  You don't need to clean it off before
doing your crimps--unless you want to not get it on your hands.

> So the question: Is this stuff any good? as good as that for regular
> cable drop lines (I'm using 50 feet)? I assume it is 75 Ohm, yes?

It's okay.  It's more designed for low cost and lower maintenance.  It's
expensive to have a lineman come out and troubleshoot or fix stuff, so they're
a little willing to put some investment into making sure that a service
visit doesn't happen.  It's 75 ohm and, at 22M, pretty low loss.  Most of it's
good for 750 to 1GHz work, so 22M should be no sweat--certainly for such a
short run.

The stuff with built in stringer (a steel wire in a parllel jacket--like zip
coard) is great for antenna feeders as the steel takes the tension off of
the coax.

Cheers,
David