Home |
Search |
Today's Posts |
#1
![]() |
|||
|
|||
![]()
Accumulated from various threads and contributions that demonstrates
anxiety, not research: As far I can tell from advice on HF, the thin foil doesn't shield as well at HF as a thicker braid with good physical coverage. It sounds like you should stop listening to advice on HF. I found an RG6 at low cost with copper braid and Al foil (more likely metalised plastic film) ....and hence mostly likely NOT RG6. RG-anything is barely more than a public domain trademark. This been hammered to death already so any appeal to nomenclature should be confined solely to the physical attributes of wire radius and shield inner radius; and NOT the number of shields, NOT the coverage of the shield, NOT the property of the wire being stranded or solid, NOT the property of the shield being al vs. cu. Everyone of those prohibited-for-discussion characteristics varies between manufacturers sharing the same nomenclature. The standard for cable tv and satellite instalations is RG6 "quad shield", which has a less dense braid, but a (almost) 100% aluminum foil shield. Foil shield is a gap filler, NOT a conductor in the conventional sense of long runs. There are no coaxial cables that have only a foil shield (a plastic carrier of a metal deposition) that are useful for any antenna work. Hence, the property of foil alone does not bring any useful quality to the discussion. As far I can tell from advice on HF, the thin foil doesn't shield as well at HF as a thicker braid with good physical coverage. Abysmal sources of information should not be returned to. "Thin foil" is a gap filler, not a shield. Besides, most advice out there implies I have to buy it and try it to be sure, which is stupid because it's cheaper and faster to get a better cable! RG6 is specified for UHF, I want HF. RG6 does not have a specification for frequency ranges outside of loss. In that regard, RG6 is eminently preferable for use at HF over UHF for that one consideration alone. There are cables of other physical geometries (about the only thing that counts in this discussion) that exceed the performance of generic RG6. http://www.abccables.com/info-rg59-vs-rg6.html is one of the more descriptive texts I read. Interesting? Quite banal, in fact, when one stumbles over such statements as: "A basic rule of thumb is to use RG6 for any Rapid Frequencies, and use RG59 for video frequencies." Now there's an authoritative standard you can take to the bank (if it is AIG). Perhaps they meant "Vapid Frequencies." I must admit I do not understand the theory that foil is worse than braid at lower frequencies, foil gives 100% coverage and is usually in addition to braid. Even if it the thickness of the foil that is in question, I don't see how, according to the article that you linked to, it " don't(sic) have the proper type of shielding ". Foil, as pointed out, is in addition to standard shielding. Foil bridges the gaps between the wires composing the weave of the shield. Those bridges are highly conductive over the very short distance between adjacent wires, but as a conductor, foil is miserable as a sole conductor. That is why foil shields that are the sole shield have what is called a "drain wire" running the length of the cable. It is quite obvious that such cables have enormous loss per foot in transverse mode, but these shielded cables do not operate in that fashion as they are almost exclusively supporting paired conductors (twisted pairs that are the signal carriers). Hence, these applications of foil/drain-wire are limited to low signal use where the shield will encounter small fields. Even then, they can be marginal. That article does seem to have a few vague contradictions, but I think the point about a thin foil that is adequate for UHF screening being inadequate for HF is interesting, and I've seen that point claimed before. In coaxial application, the performance of the foil is limited to its thickness, which in turn can be penetrated by low frequencies. We know this as an example of penetration depth. The surrounding wire is probably 10 to 100 to 1000 times thicker in that regard. The wire will always satisfy most typical applications (VLF and up) and where it would not is found in "coverage." Such issues are very rare and are not elevated to important simply because you are straining to catch a weak signal. Even with this shortfall, one has to consider. On the one hand you have a 90% coverage cable that gets signal into it. You add a poor conductor like a metal deposition plastic covering (aka foil) and it reduces that specific leakage by 3dB. To buy that 3dB in additional conventional wire coverage may boost the product cost 10% whereas adding a foil boosts cost only 1%. By reputation around the pickle barrel, the foil is still a poor solution, but in a particular application it bought you 3dB that you might have walked away from. This, of course, is a fantasy scenario to illustrate how a technical decision is weighed against cost and need. Unfortunately this fantasy scenario exceeds the technical discussion found in: I like that BT2002 with the double copper braid, but I'm not yet sure if the difference justifies the cost Sole cost based decisions for technical problems rarely prove useful. You are going to have to decide whether you can accept the performance you thought you paid for, or pay for the performance you need. As you have not actually specified any quantitative characteristic, you are facing either disappointment or illusion. 73's Richard Clark, KB7QHC |
Thread Tools | Search this Thread |
Display Modes | |
|
|
![]() |
||||
Thread | Forum | |||
hf shielding | Antenna | |||
shielding | Shortwave | |||
radio shielding? | Homebrew | |||
Shielding Question | Antenna | |||
Absorptive Shielding? | Homebrew |