Thread: Unkinking Coax
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Old October 19th 14, 06:58 PM
Channel Jumper Channel Jumper is offline
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First recorded activity by RadioBanter: Jan 2011
Posts: 390
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Unless there is something special about this coax, or if you are just going to use it for a television antenna, or something that you are only going to receive on - THROW IT AWAY!

once you exceed the minimum bend radius you open up the braid and the coax is never the same again.
THROW IT AWAY!

Coax has a shelf life - for example, Belden 9913 has a shelf life of about 10 years. Even though it was never exposed to sunlight and it was never taken out of the shed and was never exposed to the elements, after about 10 years, the coax starts to degrade and break down and then it is junk.

The kind of stuff you see at a swap meet, where the owner is still trying to get top dollar out of it.

Good Coax pays huge dividends in performance.

If all you are going to do is hook it up to a Ringo Ranger and put it on a tower, above the garage door of a fire station, and the county repeater is only 2 miles away, then yes - the quality of the coax doesn't matter much - other then the fact that it might show a false VSWR.

Like others has said, there is no way to predict what will happen when you go to use it unless you attach it to a Time Domain Reflectometer and sweep it! Something I doubt most hams would have - unless they work in the cellular telephone industry.
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