Coax run for reciever

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Adenosine

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I have had a Mode-s Beast Mark II running for 5 years and never liked the placement of the antenna. I was told at the time, using RG-58/U my max run was 10 ft to the ADSb antenna with that cable.

I would like to move the antenna up with the rest of my stuff, that is a 50ft run. any suggestions on antenna cable?
 

RFI-EMI-GUY

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I have had a Mode-s Beast Mark II running for 5 years and never liked the placement of the antenna. I was told at the time, using RG-58/U my max run was 10 ft to the ADSb antenna with that cable.

I would like to move the antenna up with the rest of my stuff, that is a 50ft run. any suggestions on antenna cable?



Two suggestions 9913F cable if you wish to stay with a 50 ohm cable. Or RG6 cable if you are on a budget and don't mind a couple extra dB loss.

There are some much larger low loss cables, but they are expensive.

You have two other options; Install the receiver in a weatherproof box close to the antenna, or better yet install a preamp with bandpass filter at the antenna to overcome the cable losses.
 
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mmckenna

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For whatever it's worth…

I'm running an ADS-B radio at work at one of my sites.
LMR-600 is used for a 40 foot run.
I'm at about 700 feet above sea level looking out over the Pacific Ocean and regularly get aircraft out close to 300 miles.

The 1GHz frequencies used make coax really lossy at length. You can try one of the many online coax calculators to try different types to see how much loss they'd have.


I've also got an AIS receiver at another site, up about 850 above seal level. 3db gain base antenna, about 40 feet of LMR-600.
Thanks to ducting, I frequency pick up ships 600 miles south of me.
 

mmckenna

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I'll add….

You can get LMR-600 pretty inexpensively, even with preinstalled connectors. It's good stuff and works well.
If you are looking, make sure you consider 1/2" heliax as an option. It performs a bit better and you can often find used/reel ends on e-bay pretty cheap. It's stiffer than the LMR-600, so routing it through walls, ceilings, etc. can take some more work.
 

737mech

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another way

Just adding another idea, have the antenna and a short run of coax to an rtl dongle, then run a powered usb extension from monoprice.com there will be very little to no loss because of coax length. That's my setup and it works great! I use a powered 88 foot extension. Here's a current screenshot. The rings are set at 50 miles and the green area is my "range" . I also use the flightaware 1090 filter inline with the antenna and rtl dongle.
 
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