Antenna Coax for HP 2

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movinon

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Rg8x is what I use on my 536hp

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movinon

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Dx engineering or Hro...ham radio outlet.

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mmckenna

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Anyone recommend antenna coax cable, for the HP 2?

I want to put up an outside antenna

Thanks

Depends on a few things:
How long is the run from your radio to the antenna?
What frequencies are you most interested in?

RG-6 is a good option in many cases. Where you can have issues is really long cable runs. As the cable gets longer, the losses go up. As frequencies go up, losses go up, too. A really long cable run trying to pull in a distant 800MHz system might have issues with lower end coax.

The benefit to RG-6 is that it's cheap, small and fairly flexible. One place where you need to be careful is connecting heavy/large coax cable directly to a radio. The additional stress put on the antenna connector on the radio can cause damage. It's pretty common in the industry to use a smaller more flexible cable as a jumper between the big stuff and the radio. Prevents a lot of headaches.
 

Ubbe

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The short flexible coax to use between scanner and bigger coax are called pigtail. Order one from ebay that have sma male at one end and suitable connector in the other to connect to whatever you have at the thicker coax. Preferable get a RG316 pigtail.

RG6 have the advantage that it is dead simple to mount a connecter, just twist it on. Many antennas are fitted with F connectors that the RG6 coax uses.

/Ubbe
 

popnokick

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RG-6 for scanner. Highest performing, most flexible, easy to put connectors on... and lowest cost for all of those advantages.
 

SOFA_KING

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100' of RG-6 at 850 MHz has 9.017 dB of loss. That is a LOT of loss!

100' of Andrew LDF4-50A 1/2" hardline at 850 MHz has 2.037 dB of loss.

Even better, 100' of Andrew LDF5-50A 7/8" hardline at 850 MHz has 1.143 dB of loss.

Just sayin'

Phil
 

trp2525

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100' of RG-6 at 850 MHz has 9.017 dB of loss. That is a LOT of loss!

100' of Andrew LDF4-50A 1/2" hardline at 850 MHz has 2.037 dB of loss.

Even better, 100' of Andrew LDF5-50A 7/8" hardline at 850 MHz has 1.143 dB of loss.

Just sayin'

Phil

FYI for those who might be interested in the cost per foot of the various coaxes mentioned above:

Belden RG6 $0.33 per foot (https://www.rfparts.com/rg6-u-1189.html) with 6.1 dB loss per 100 feet at 824 MHz per the attenuation information at my link

Andrew LDF4-50A 1/2" Heliax $2.95 per foot (https://www.rfparts.com/coax/heliaxcoax/heliax-12inch/ldf4-50a.html)

Andrew LDF5-50A 7/8" Heliax $8.25 per foot (https://www.rfparts.com/ldf5-50a.html)
 

movinon

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I use it and like it fine unless you have a really long run...no big deal.

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movinon

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The hardline is really low loss but really expensive.

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Ubbe

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Stay away from coax with only a simple copper braid without any foil, like the RG8 and RG58. It will let in interferencies from electronics straight thru the shielding when it isn't double shielded. The higher the frequency the easier it is to penetrate that single braided shielding.

/Ubbe
 

jonwienke

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I use it and like it fine unless you have a really long run...no big deal.

Actually it is a big deal. The cable you are recommending has double the loss, and is more expensive than RG6. Until you figure out why that is bad, you should probably refrain from giving online advice.
 

movinon

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Lol.....it's a scanner antenna....nobody is transmitting a signal....you can receive on a piece of speaker wire if needed.

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SOFA_KING

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Coax Attenuation Chart

I would just use the rg8x for your application.

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RG8X huh? Let's see...100' of RG8X at 850 MHz has a whopping loss of 12.706 dB.

Just to illustrate the attenuation we are talking about in easy to understand numbers, if you put 100 watts at one end you would end up with a measly 5.363 watts at the other end. Uhhhhh, that's like 95% of your signal being thrown away! Why even bother to go to all the expense of purchasing and installing an outdoor antenna system?

I get the coax price issue, but there are ways to get hardline for free...yes free! If you were around when Nextel decommissioned their tower equipment, you could have probably managed to get a really good supply of 1 5/8" hardline in some very long lengths...by the hundreds of feet if that's what you needed. That's some big stuff that might be a bit too heavy for amateurs, but they dropped plenty of beautiful 7/8" hardline too. They were dropping and chopping that stuff up as fast as they could to turn it in for a meager percentage of the copper value. That is a waste of some very expensive high performance hardline! But that is how the industry runs...wastefully. And many tower crews would have gladly offloaded that stuff to get it out of their way. I have a garage full of all types and sizes. Most "new install" radio systems will only use new line, as qualifying the antenna system requires near perfect sweeps. It's not worth their time to mess with old line that may have had issues (but usually doesn't...at least for good long sections of it). And so old line that gets decommissioned, and removed from the tower so they no longer have to pay rent on the tower space, is usually scrapped. This is plenty usable by hobbyists who don't need "perfect" new line. Just watch for tower crews stripping towers of old antennas and line. But stay out of their way. They can't allow you to get near the tower work and possibly get injured. All it costs you is having a trailer to tow it away and some gas money. So now, how is that for "price"? ;)

Phil
 

movinon

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Even if it was free hardline would be a lot of trouble for a beginning hobbyist.
It's only a scanner.

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