Longwire Installed, Fiber Installed, What Next?
Over the weekend I finally got started on a project I had been putting off for a long time. I ran the PVC conduit and installed my longwire antenna. While there are still a few small items to clear up, it is mostly complete. I had help from my good friends Bernie and Jacob, and we did a fairly decent job. The longwire and balun are strung between my house and my garage. The balun is about 15 feet from the house, and one of the small tasks yet to do is to waterproof the PL-259 connector attaching to it, and to also connect the ground side of the balun to the wire which heads back towards the house and eventually terminates at the ground rod.
I ran the main radiating element at a 58 foot length, and hope that will tune up well on most bands. The LMR-400 coaxial cable is run down from the balun, to a lightning protection block, which is directly tied to a ground rod via a 4 gauge bare copper wire which is only about 3 ft long. From there the coaxial cable enters my basement and is routed to my office, where it will hook up to a tuner and my HF rig.
The multimode fiber optic cable goes from my data rack in the basement, and follows the LMR-400 out thru the conduit and up to the longwire. It follows the radiating element across to the garage, and terminates in the second floor of the garage with a large extra loop of fiber. That will be for providing ethernet out in the garage. I choose fiber because it is non-conductive, and will not interfere, or be interfered with by the RF radiation.
While down in the basement pulling both the fiber and my LMR-400, I notices an excessive amount of CATV cable of various types from the past owner of the house. He must have had TV's in every room! Time for a clean up. And so begins to next project of cleaning up the wiring in the house, including the electrical wiring.