Discone antenna and RG-6 cable

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glen4cindy

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I've gladfully moved out of an HOA back into a normal neighborhood and for all these years kept my loved Discone antenna packed away.

I'm getting ready to put it back in service. Back in the day I had put a PL-259 to 75-ohm connector on it and had it connected to regular coax like I had used for cable TV or satellite.

I still have that PL-259 connector on it but my Pro-2024 scanner has a Motorola type jack on the back.

So now, I'm faced with how to get this antenna mounted and the wire down to my radio with minimum loss.

I do not have any RG-58 tools or connectors. I have plenty of RG-6 cable and connectors and the tools.

Will this work with minimal loss of signal?

Thanks in advance.
 

KB8JXO

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You should be fine

You may have been using RG59 before the HOA, and RG6 does have less loss than RG59. Now for the Motorola connector, I can't help you on that problem.
 
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RG-6 will work fine. Radio Shack has SO-239 to Motorola adapters. If you live near a Love's truck stop the have a cable with a Motorola on one end a PL-259 on the other
 

glen4cindy

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Thanks for the replies.

I was more concerned about the impedance mismatch of the 50ohm Discone antenna and the PL-259 to 75ohm adapter I have on it than I was about using the RG-6 cable.

Thanks for the advice.
 

majoco

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I'm not sure whether the quad-shield is any better electrically than the 'ordinary' stuff, but it's certainly a lot easier to handle - our "TV" grade sold here has so much silicon grease through it that it makes it very difficult to make a neat cable end or joint, whereas the quad-shield is easy - you can even put a PL259 connector on quite succesfully.

Mind you, I think our PL259's are different to yours - mostly ours are threaded inside the sleeve to fit an RG8 coax braid or else they are supplied with an adapter with a similar thread to tightly grip rg58/59. The threaded portion for RG8 nicely grips the first braid of RG6 - just cover it with a heat shrink glued stuff and it's totally weather proof.
 

spongella

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Glad to hear you are back in a radio-friendly neighborhood. I had one of those Radio Shack discones like yours, it worked pretty well for many years and I used generic RG/6 cable from Radio Shack as a feedline. You can use an adapter to go from the SO-239 to a female F at the antenna. At the radio end just shop around for a female F to a Motorola adapter, look on Ebay. You can also find them at Universal Radio.

As far as the 75 ohm "mismatch" for receiving it's not an issue. Go forth and scan.
 

KA4UUF

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Why do you say the quad shield is better for this application?
prcguy
I only use rg6 quad shield coax for all my monitoring very low loss and blocks everything you don't want from getting into your receiver
Without it I pick up interference from most electronics. Yes you can spend a ton more and do better, but it's the most bang for your bucks. [emoji3]

Sent from my SM-G928P using Tapatalk
 

JamesO

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McLean, VA
If you are running coax, might as well be quad shield cable, cost is not much difference and it cuts down on ingress problems. For example I have a 85 dB FM Notch Filter at the output of my antenna due to some VERY high level FM stations in my area. I could have ingress of the FM stations into the coax after the Notch filter effectively making it useless.

Have seen FM and TV broadcast, Pagers and ever AM Aircraft comms leak into poorly shielded and/or damaged coax.
 

prcguy

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I've done a lot of RG-6 testing for the largest satellite TV company in the US and I've found little use for quad shield. Even in large tightly bundled runs with hundreds of cables spanning hundreds of feet with signals past 2GHz there is very little cross talk between cables.

Quad shield has no more or less loss per foot that regular RG-6. There will probably be more signal ingress through the case of your scanner than through regular plain vanilla RG-6, which is double shielded to start with having a 100% foil shield and a braid over that. RG-6 is not the same shielding as crappy old Radio Shack CB coax, its several magnitudes better shielding.

You can do more by adding a choke balun at both ends of the coax to keep common mode interference from electronics in your house traveling up the outside of the coax to your antenna, then getting picked up by the antenna than going to quad shield.
prcguy

I only use rg6 quad shield coax for all my monitoring very low loss and blocks everything you don't want from getting into your receiver
Without it I pick up interference from most electronics. Yes you can spend a ton more and do better, but it's the most bang for your bucks. [emoji3]

Sent from my SM-G928P using Tapatalk
 

iMONITOR

Silent Key
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Bob Grove of Monitoring Times Magazine fame (Editor), used to advocate the use of RG6 (not RG58/U) for decades! Bob Parnass recommended it as well!

Man I sure miss those guys being active in our hobby, and helping/educating everyone!
 
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