Robert Green wrote:
Can anyone point me to a good site that would prepare me for the task of
burying about 50' of video, audio and power cable? Long. and lat. about the
same as the President's (as in near Wash, DC) so the soil is rocky clay.
Gas lines and water lines are below ground, everything else is above (power,
phone, CATV). I want to run a 12V power cable, two or three RG59U CCTV
cables and some 18ga speaker wire for the intercom box..

Ground is nice and wet and good for digging, but I've never run any cable
outside. I susect the best tool would be to rent a trencher and dig,
troglodyte, did. Anyone able to tell me what it's going to cost and if
it's even reasonable to consider a post hole digger (which I have) instead
of a trencher to do the job?

Am I going to have to go deep enough to have to call MISSUTILITY (if she
hasn't been laid off along with everyone else!)?

I assume that anything over a few wires needs to be run in conduit. Is that
correct? Are there different kinds of conduit for burial? Do I need to run
burial grade cable in conduit or will conduit protect normal interior use
cable?

Can I calculate the voltage drop just by observation? (Measure battery
voltage at one end and then through the run of wire to see how many volts
remain and how much more than 12VDC I need to push through the wire to get
12VDC at the front gate?)

Run 24VAC to the gate, and then use a 24VAC to 12VDC converter, i.e.
Google "SECUREMAX: AT12015".

For low voltage wiring, you don't need to go very deep, 6-8" and
hopefully gas and water lines are a lot deeper than that.

Conduit is nice, to keep the wires clean and together and protected,
though low voltage outdoor wiring is often just buried without conduit
(i.e. sprinkler valve wiring). I put it inside PVC pipe.