Monday, February 28, 2011

Foiling the copper thieves

The price of copper has risen by 300 percent over the last two years. Other metals have also risen in value. According to GB2RS News, this is making radio amateurs targets for copper thieves. An amateur in Yorkshire had all his cabling stolen including the coax and ladder line for his G5RV antenna.

I presume the action of an irate neighbour fed up with receiving TVI has been ruled out. The RSGB is encouraging amateurs to make sure access to cables is restricted and that their installations are as secure as possible. Looks like another benefit of stealth operation and attic antennas!

4 comments:

  1. Hello Julian, I must take care, in the Netherlands are also a lot of copper thieves active. 73 Paul

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  2. Good morning Julian, it's true those of us with attic antenna setup's the thieves would have to tip toe past us first.

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  3. Around here they are targeting more heavy installations like old factories for the power transformers....bad luck for some of them, sometimes the power grid isn't disconnected, from memory I recall last year 3 occurrences with at least severe burns.

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  4. Sounds like a good case for running the full legal limit. I'm sure an RF burn would be a strong deterrent!

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