RE: RG-8 vs RG-6 universal antenna cable?

My own recommendations are to get a short ~18" LMR-100 or LMR-195 pigtail
adapter that goes from the proprietary MC/MMCX/RP-TNC/etc. connector to an
N-male  connector.  Most of the antennas I've looked at Hyperlinktech and
other sources have N-female connectors on them.  Then, if you want the
antenna more than 18 inches from the PC Card, get an N-male to N-female
extension cable made of LMR-400 grade cable or better.  It is pretty easy
to find N-male to N-female lightning arrestors too and it'd be easy to fit
that in-line also.

I've seen folks selling 6ft LMR-100 cables, but I don't know that I'd want
to use one as LMR-100 has kinda high loss at 2.4ghz (you can find charts
online that show the signal loss for different grades of LMR cable at
different frequencies).  This loss is why I suggest using short 18" LMR-100
cables plus extensions of higher grade LMR-400+ cable if needed.  Some of
the proprietary connectors will only fit on the LMR-100, not on the higher
grades, thus the LMR-100 to N-Male pigtail requirement.  I have not yet
evaluated the effects of signal loss at connectors; I'm assuming that at
short extension lengths the net effect of using the extension + short
LMR-100 pigtail will be about even with a single short (yet longer than
18") LMR-100 cable.  In long runs of 25/50/100ft I'm sure the
connector-induced signal loss is less than the cable-induced signal loss
LMR-100 would have at those lengths.

-hk

At 08:43 AM 10/27/2003 -0500, you wrote:
>
>I don't think you'd want to buy a cable until you know exactly
>which specific device is gonna connect on each end.
>
>So, let's use a specific case.  Let's assume that the WAP/Router
>is a Linksys...which all take the RP-TNC (reverse-polarity TNC)
>connector for that end.  One the other end, an N-Male connector
>is what I needed to attach onto the base of the antenna that
>I selected (mine was a 10-dBi omni-directional, which has the
>N-Female connector on its base).
>
>One other specific case:  Let's say you want to go 'war-driving'
>and you want to connect that same antenna, but this time you
>need to connect it to the Orinoco Gold PC-card (PCMCIA) in
>a laptop.  That Orinoco adapter has an 'MC' connector for its
>antenna connection, so you'd need an 'MC' connector on one
>end and that same N-Male connector on the other.
>
>As mentioned earlier, you want to keep the connecting cable short.
>(There is a good discussion of antenna types and related issues
>in the O'Reilly textbook '802.11 Wireless Networks'...it's got
>pictures of bats (flying mammals) on the cover.)
>
>One technique that is often used to keep the antenna cable short
>is to even consider putting the WAP/router in an external/outdoor
>enclosure immediately below base of the antenna.
>
>http://www.hyperlinktech.com/
>sells all this stuff, including the 'NEMA' enclosure boxes.
>
>Hope this helps...
>
>
>
>               Dave
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: talk-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>[mailto:talk-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of Chuck Lare
>Sent: October 26, 2003 23:59
>To: talk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>Subject: RG-8 vs RG-6 universal antenna cable?
>
>
>Greetings
>
>I am trying to determine which TNC-RP connector to select based on which
>cable I want to connect.  To be able connect as many different kinds of
>antennas as possible would RG6, RG8 (apparently popular with HAMs) or some
>other be the best or most versatile?
>
>Please advise, thanks.
>
>Chuck
>
>
>
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