Switching Coax

[duxfire]

I currently have an Antenna Craft ST2 with 50-ft. of RG-6 coaxial cable. I know I can pull more range if I can find a way to easily switch to RG-8, any ideas?

 

[popnokick]

The ST-2 is 300 ohms impedance at its feedpoint and includes a 300 to 75 ohm matching transformer. RG-8 is 50 ohm cable and technically a mismatched cable. That is why the ST-2 comes with RG-6 cable which is 75 ohm. Using mismatched coax will not "pull more range" and in fact be a waste of time and money. Your time/money would be better spent on increasing the height of the antenna and/or adding a preamp... although the latter can introduce other problems like intermod and signal overload. The ST-2 doesn't usually need a preamp.

 

[duxfire]

Thanks so much! I'll raise it up a little bit rather than put money down on a preamp which I might not need.

 

[SpectreOZ]

If money is burning a hole in your pocket you could always splash out on some RG12 75Ohm coaxial which has an even lower loss specification rating, though to be honest I'm not how much more (if any) performance you will gain, you never specified what frequencies you monitor...