I need to run some RG-58 underground from an antenna to my house. ~55'. I figured I'd run it through PVC conduit buried about a foot deep. To rotate said antenna I'm going to use an RCA VH226 rotator, so I'll need to run that cable underground as well. The output from the box to the rotator is 20V, .52A. My question is can I run both the coax and the antenna cable in the same PVC conduit? Should they be in separate PVS conduits? If so, do they need to be in separate trenches with space in between? Any advice would be most welcome, thanks!
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mmckenna
I ♥ Ø
You can run both in the same conduit.
But a few points I'll make since you are in territory I deal with at work all the time….
- "~55'" and "RG-58" raises some questions. What frequencies are you going to be using this at? RG-58 will have quite a bit of loss at VHF and higher frequencies. If this is for shortwave, RG-58 will work, but you may want to consider RG-6, much lower loss, and inexpensive...
- Even inside conduit, water will collect. Even if you seal both ends, water is going to get inside. Warm/moist air gets in and will condense since the ground is cooler. Water will leak in through joints. Joints will separate as the ground shifts (heating/cooling). Rocks, rodents, they all do damage. Regular cable might work fine for a while, but eventually the jacket breaks down and the water gets inside and corrodes everything. Consider a direct bury rated cable (it has a water displacing gel inside that keeps the water out), even inside conduit. Or, run the cable above ground. I just had to replace 700 feet of phone cable at one of our remote sites because someone used the wrong type of cable. A lot of wasted labor and money...
- Trenching is expensive. Even if you are doing the work yourself, that's a lot of work. Consider putting in more than one conduit, or a larger conduit to support more antennas down the road. Conduit is relatively cheap, digging up all that dirt is hard. Open the trench once, put in more than you need. I did something similar in my back yard. I put in a 1" conduit for irrigation control, and a 2" conduit for coaxial cable. I was glad to have two separate conduits and the 2" pipe made life a lot easier when I wanted to add stuff.
- consider grounding carefully. You may want to include a ground wire in the conduit.
- For coax, rotor control and a ground wire, 1" or 1 1/4" is the smallest I'd run. But look at the prices. Not much difference in the cost of 1" versus 2" (or even larger), and it may be something you really want down the road.
- Don't forget to leave a pull rope in the conduit when you are done. Makes it easier to add more wire later.
I'll second the points that mmckenna made. I bury a lot of conduit at work for both data and electrical. The two belong in separate conduits but for your application, low voltage and data are fine in the same conduit. PVC is great for underground work but it is not invincible. 12" is a bit shallow and is almost within range of a determined shovel or pick blow unless buried under concrete. It is common practice to run PVC in the horizontal runs and use PVC wrapped (PVC tape can be found at the hardware store) steel elbows and vertical nipples as the conduits is run above ground. I never run less than 2" schedule 40 conduit. It doesn't cost much more and makes pulling a lot easier especially if you decide to pull additional wiring in the future. If you intend to pull large diameter cable such as LMR 400, you might consider a long sweep (larger radius) elbow. It makes the wire pulling a lot easier too.
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