this post was submitted on 20 Dec 2025
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What is this thing?

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Found some temporarely mounted very shielded looking wire running across what seems to be a construction site which goes into the ground on both sides. Anyone got an Idea what its being used for? (lemmy.ohaa.xyz)
submitted 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) by Oha@lemmy.ohaa.xyz to c/whatisthisthing@lemmy.world
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[–] bklyn@piefed.social 39 points 4 months ago (3 children)

That looks like high capacity coaxial cable. Probably for phone and Internet usage for the neighborhood. But it’s hard to tell.

[–] Oha@lemmy.ohaa.xyz 6 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Thats what I thought too, but arent those a little smaller? This one is thumb sized

[–] jqubed@lemmy.world 30 points 4 months ago (1 children)

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!

[–] bklyn@piefed.social 5 points 4 months ago

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.

[–] AbsolutelyNotAVelociraptor@sh.itjust.works 4 points 4 months ago

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.

[–] ryannathans@aussie.zone 11 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

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

[–] Bakkoda@lemmy.zip 5 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

LMR cable? For like a HAM radio?

I would say maybe like lmr-600 specifically. Just a guess though.