We haven’t had much rain in the second half of the summer, but after two downpours, the radio fence transmitter started chirping, indicating a break. It stopped chirping after the first rain before I could check for the break. It didn’t stop the second time, so I went digging, so to speak.
Wet ground has usually meant one of the previous mends is getting wet or corroded and losing contact, so it is a challenge to figure out which mend is having the problem. Using some extra wire, I was able to isolate the break to the back corner where Fort Charlie is, but testing past mends found them all in good shape.
I decided the wire must have broken underground in a place that gets a lot of water and dirt gets pushed around, so I replaced half of the back line. I also replaced three mends with two in the process, using wire caps, contact cement, and electrical tape. The photos will give clues the next time I have to worry about this.
Having a straight line helps when locating the wire. I tied a rope between a sweetgum tree and the base of a privet bush to provide a guide. The yellow line indicates where the wire runs between the sweetgum, privet, and then up to the corner of the property, turning along the neighbors fence. The shovel in the photo shows the wire runs under the handle just at where the metal shovel begins. The green line shows the wire being one shovel length from the dwarf magnolia. The two small orange lines indicate the location of the two new mends with orange wire caps. I left plenty of spare wire in these locations to allow for future testing and re-mending.
See also: Radio Fence Repair 2009-11
One of the two near-garden breaks loosened up (going to the back). I had retwisted both, capped, glued, and taped them with the back line repair. I checked both and the twists seemed to be loose and perhaps were covered with corrosion preventing solid contact. So I used a small file to shine up the tips, twist them back, made sure the caps were on tight, glued, and taped. We’ll see…
Oh, while doing all of this, Kathy got a call in the house that our little dog Stout was wandering around on an adjacent street, so Kathy went off and retrieved him.
Break again. One of the two rose garden mends loosened. The contact cement idea is probably a bad idea, so I replaced two rose garden mends and driveway-crack mend with grease-filled wire nuts and electrical tape.
Another break. I isolated the break to the bend around the front yard by running a wire to various mends. The mend at the driveway isolated it to the front. I’ve had so many breaks in the front with the foundation work, I decided to pull all the wire out from Kathy’s garden up the side front, across the front, and to the driveway mend. That is now all yellow wire (smaller gauge.) I also replaced a mend about 6 feet into the woods behind the storm drain with a grease nut, which is a better way to mend.
I moved the line out about two feet farther from Kathy’s garden to create room for the dogs to walk on the outside of the garden instead of walking on the inside. Two grease nuts are about four feet out from Kathy’s garden, one leading to the back and one leading to the front.
Pingback: Radio Fence Patch 2014-03-30 | JEB:LOG
The new yellow wire from driveway to Kathy’s garden was cut by Mr. Pink’s blade.
http://fiveforks.com/jeb/2014/03/radio-fence-patch-2014-03-30/
Mend at front of Kathy’s garden where the twisted pair of wires were nicked.
http://fiveforks.com/jeb/2014/06/radio-fence-mend-kathys-garden-twisted-pair-nicked/
Loose connection developed at driveway over the summer. I could step on the mend to “fix” it. I think the twist was not squeezed by the large, tan grease twist nut. So I replaced it with a smaller orange nut with white grease and taped it.
