I was taught by an old ham who did a lot of commercial installations the following.
His advice was to use good quality tape 3M 33 or 88 tape. Start at the connector wrap downward past the connector. Spray with clear spray paint. Wrap 2 starts at the bottom the the 1st wrap go upward to the connector. Apply another coat of clear spray to seal the tape. Layer 3 starts at the connector again and goes downward past the end of previous wraps. Spray again. This gives a good water tight job. When you are inspecting the antenna you simply note the direction of the tape if it should come lose. You'll know how immediately it may or may not need attention. I did this after pealing off the sticky mess of coax seal on a rooftop installation. The previous installer was even so "thoughtful" as to plug the hole in the base of the Stationmaster. Actually the only thing holding the connector to the hardline was the seal as I suspected by the noise when the wind picked up. Several years of PA failures, some years it was twice a year, were history. Tony --- In Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com, "jland138" <jland...@...> wrote: > > Any recommendations or best practices on weatherproofing the coax connection > to a base station antenna? The Comtelco XL (or horrors! Antenex FG) series > both have a drain system at the base that need to remain open. Is it as > simple as some coax seal and avoid plugging the drain holes? > > Any recommendations on using heat shrink at the cable end of the coax > connector? Does it help, or does it eventually wind up as a moisture > reservoir?
