[amsat-bb] Station advice: coax

[GEO Badger]

Keith, 
You want the lowest loss coax you can afford for your run. ½" hard line would be a good choice, though not inexpensive and neither are the connectors. Plus it is rather rigid and can be difficult to handle. Terminate it at the rotator and use a flexible jumper from there to the antennas.
To use a diplexer you'll need one at both ends, assuming 2 antennas. Recall that a diplexer will have insertion loss of >3 dB. And that I don't believe they will pass DC. Though I haven't ever checked that. ---  
 Ciao baby, catch you on the flip side.    
 GEO     

 http://www.w3ab.org

Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana.

      From: "Keith E. Brandt, WD9GET" <wd9get at amsat.org>
 To: amsat-bb at amsat.org 
 Sent: Saturday, November 17, 2018 10:11 AM
 Subject: [amsat-bb] Station advice: coax
   
There's been a lot of good station advice on the reflector recently that 
I've really appreciated. I'm slowly but surely building up my sat ground 
station. I've got my Yaesu G5400B connected and running and I've got an 
antenna plan. The next issue is running coax.

What's the recommendation on coax runs? It looks like I'll have between 
75 and 100 ft from the shack to the mount. I can envision running a 
separate line for 2m and 440, but is it also effective to use a diplexer 
at the antenna? Does that limit my ability to later add a mast-mounted 
preamp with power-over-coax? (I'll probably add preamp(s) at a later date)

Is the ultraflex coax really necessary for hooking up around the 
rotator? I'm sure it's better, but is it really worth the extra cost? I 
certainly don't want to pay the high price for ultraflex for the full 
run, especially if I'm using two lines.

Thoughts appreciated.

73,
Keith
-- 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Keith E. Brandt, MD, MPH
/wd9get at amsat.org/

/Christianity and science are opposed… but only in the same sense as my 
thumb
and forefinger are opposed- and between them I can grasp everything.
/—Sir William Bragg (Nobel Prize for Physics- 1915)

*This message transmitted with 100% recycled electrons
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