According to the RSGB amateur radio news 'copper thefts are on the rise'. I wondered where my local beat bobbies had gone and there was me thinking it was down to de-manning due to government cuts.
Hang on maybe they mean the coppers are doing the thefts. That would not surprise me either, but no...
Apparently an amateur in Yorkshire was a victim of one of these copper thefts when all his cabling was stolen overnight. That included the coax and ladder line used for a G5RV antenna. While I personally would suspect it more likely this was the work of an aggrieved neighbour, wife, mistress or someone he upset on the local repeater, than someone collecting copper for scrap, it probably pays to be vigilant and to keep you wires and feeder out of easy reach.
For anyone thinking of doing the same here a warning, my garden is a death trap with an unfinished hole for my mast and trip hazards everywhere and when your lying in my hole with a broken leg be warned I don't take prisoners and then there are the tigers. Which reminds me I must get the lawn cut this week or I will loose the giraffes again.
Good evening Stephen, in Canada copper theft is big. I work for a utility and we have had lots of trouble with theft. There has been deaths as well when thieves remove copper cabling from live equipment.
ReplyDeleteSecurity once caught a thief who had a bag full off copper stolen from steam tracing around the refinery were I work. He had just started to cut in to a high pressure hydrogen line off a live compressor. It could have been the last thing he ever stole.
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