What an idiot I am! Today while mowing the lawn, I saw a clump of weeds along the chain link fence that I just had to trim. So I ran the mower over them; and in the process, chewed up the feedlines to both my G5RV and the Butternut vertical! Talk about wanting to kick yourself in the behind!
Fortunately, all was not lost. I took the coax to my 2 Meter antenna, which I never use and hooked it up to the feedline leading to the Butternut. I cut the Butternut feedline above the mower damage and installed a PL-259. Then I used a barrel connector to attach it to the 2 Meter line. Done! I switched the coax from the VHF radio to the HF radio and it worked just fine.
For the G5RV, I used the piece of coax that was feeding the Butternut last year. I was having trouble with that coax and found the problem area. I cut away the bad part and the balance was just sitting, coiled up and tied to the fence. I put a PL-259 on that and pressed it into service. Voila! It works! It's mini RG-8X and will serve until I can afford some RG9913 or LM283 or something like that.
For safety, I took the coax and tie-wrapped it along the top of the chain link fence. Now it's no longer at ground level and this unfortunate incident should never happen again! I knew I was going to have a busy day with mowing the lawn and repairing the grill. The day got much busier than I had intended!
73 de Larry W2LJ
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