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That looks like high capacity coaxial cable. Probably for phone and Internet usage for the neighborhood. But it’s hard to tell.
this post was submitted on 20 Dec 2025
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What is this thing?
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Ditto.
Thats what I thought too, but arent those a little smaller? This one is thumb sized
Coaxial cable can come in different sizes, somewhat related to how strong the signal you want to carry is. First time I was in a TV transmitter I saw a lot of copper pipes running across the ceiling, maybe 6 inches (15 cm) in diameter. I asked what the pipes were for and was told they weren’t pipes, they were coaxial cables. Turns out when you need to carry 30,000 watts of RF the cable needs to get a little bigger. Still 75 ohms resistance!
they are copper pipes though. Copper pipe within a copper pipe, Also known as rigid coax
Yes, just that it was being used as a GIANT cable. The inner piece was about an inch (2.5 cm) diameter pipe carrying the signal, and the outer pipe acted as the shield, with plastic spacers to keep the inner piece aligned.
yes, that’s rigid coax. It’s literally a copper pipe.
I feel like “pipe” in most contexts implies something with an open interior to carry liquid or material
I think it's just very high-capacity. like, this is what they run on utility poles (or bury), and connect to huge switches in your neighborhood before being split up into individual lines.
I second this. I had coaxial cable at home bunch of years ago. It was used for phone, internet and tv. Looks a lot like the one I had.
Coaxial cable and as far as they go that's a poorly shielded one
Cable TV, antenna feeds, and internet in some places use these cables
This one looks lowish loss so I'd expect it to be related to an antenna feed
LMR cable? For like a HAM radio?
I would say maybe like lmr-600 specifically. Just a guess though.