Radar cable on mast

[Guest]

I'll be fitting a radar scanner to the mast this winter. Mast is stepped and the conduit inside is full of existing cabling for lights etc. Is there any disadvantage to running the radar cable down the front of the aluminium mast and is there a best type of conduit to use?

 

[brianhumber]

I faced this problem last year. Solution was to run small plastic conduit (bought from B&Q) down outside of mast with fixings every metre. The conduit is flexible ish so was able to curve it around the mast from leading edge to back. Pop the cable inside, it was a snug fit and snap the lid on. No snagging problems this summer and looks neater than I expected. I mounted my scanner low down at around 4 metres, this still gives me 15 + miles range and excellent close range, even picks up pot sticks and flags on very calm sea conditions.

 

[steffen]

All my cabling is inside the mast and runs through 5/8 pvc pipes. Cheap and durable. Disadvantage is that you have to drill a rather large hole in the mast to pass the pipe through.