🚀 go-pugleaf

>I am about to put up a new cushcraft 144mhz antenna.  It will be
>mounted on a mast some 80 feet from my shack.  I have purchased 
>a suitable length of low loss Belden 9913 coaxial cable to
>connect it to my shack, and was wondering if there would be 
>any problem if I ran the cable underground, as opposed to
>stringing it overhead?  Will this affect the loss rating of the
>cable?  Which way should I go here?

If you are going to open up the ground to bury it, put in a piece of
polyethelene tubing.  Around here, a 100 foot length of 3/4 inch stuff
costs about $10 or so.  As you can imaging, it has lots of advantages,
like much easier to replace the coax, much easier to run other wires
later (actually, I'd suggest a couple runs of 1" tubing), and better
physical protection for the wire.  If you do bury it directly, so long
as you don't physically abuse it the loss should not change--though
it may be a little longer than if you run it in the air.  I have found
that sunlight and chemicals in the air do a number on the outer
jacket of coax in a few years, and believe that running it in a tube/
pipe provides a lot more protection-->life.

K7ITM