Well, I have had my antenna "inspected" by a deer and my radials dug up by raccoons but this one is still a mystery. My weather station uses a small four conductor jacketed cable and it quit working yesterday. The problem was traced to this section of damaged wire.
The wire was secured under the eaves to the soffit and was not exposed to the weather or to chafing. This view shows what looks like tiny chew marks along the insulation. The only thing I know of that could have made such marks would be an insect. Wasps and some bees will chew things for nesting materials but this, if true, would be the first case I know of where they used plastic wire insulation. Whatever it was also managed to sever the copper wire on one of the conductors. The rest of the 40 foot run of wire was not damaged, just this one short length.
Rodents are known to damage wires but given the location and size of the wire and the chew marks it would be highly improbable that a rodent did this.
Just another thing to watch for with outdoor wiring.
Neil
Bats?
Ants?
Most likely it was a squirrel. They inhabit the exterior of homes (sometimes interior if your unlucky) and chew on wood, plastic and wires. They can even gnaw right through the copper. They chew on stuff to keep their constantly growing teeth trimmed down to size. All rodents chew stuff for this reason. It could be a mouse or a chipmunk too, but I think a squirrel is the most likely candidate.
Search for "why do squirrels chew wires". Chewed car wiring is apparently a frequent problem. I had that happen once. I kept blowing the tail light fuse whenever I made a left turn at night and stepped on the brakes. Try telling that to a mechanic! Found the problem about a year later by accident. The right front side marker light wire was broken and frayed and hanging down. The combination of a left turn and braking deceleration caused the dangling wire to swing and contact the body.
I've had a couple fiber optic cables chewed by squirrels. One cable was underground in a 4 inch conduit. They chewed up a 10 foot section of that one.
Another was overhead, right where it exited a conduit on a utility pole about 25 feet up. They chewed that one, 96 strands, almost completely in two. It was spliced and they did it again a few weeks later.
A mouse took the City's 800 mHz trunked radio system down. The mouse got into the radio shack, into the tower top amplifier power supply, and chewed the AC neutral in two. Without that amplifier the receiver sensistivity is good for a range of about 1/4 mile.
You are probably right about this being caused by a rodent, the most likely being a mouse. Years back my truck had squirrel damage when they chewed a couple of the injector cables and the damage didn't look anything like that in the pics which made me think it wasn't a rodent but maybe it was a mouse. I suppose a mouse could have left the tiny bite impressions.
Underground telephone and fiber optic cables are sheathed with a steel ribbon wrap for a good reason but that is more than I am going to pursue for a weather station which is not mission critical.
Neil
Despite having no final proof of which type of animal chewed Radio 8Z's wire, the white house wants to launch a drone attack on the squirrels in Dublin, Ohio.
oh come on now, we were told in several press releases that the drones don't attack on US soil.
🙂
They are not going to attack the soil. They are going to attack trees.