Cushcraft Ringo Ranger II
 

In article ,
Harry George wrote:

What would you consider appropriate coax for VHF? The run is c. 30
feet, though I'm using a 50 foot cable (RG8, UHF couplers). Antenna
is Optek 2m/70cm vertical, and currently performs worse than the
rubber duckie for my VX-5R.

That sure sounds as if something is amiss. Full-size RG8 cable ought
to have tolerably low losses on 2 meters, and even on 70 cm, for that
sort of a length. It'd be better to cut it down to length, of course,
but I wouldn't think that it'd be _that_ bad even on 70!

First thing I'd suggest, is do a trial installation of a different
antenna at the end of that coax, and see if the signal gets any
better. If it does, then your antenna has problems. If not, then the
coax is bad.

One definite problem with PL-259 connectors is that they are by no
means waterproof-by-design. If you've had that antenna up through one
or more significant rainstorms, and if you didn't install extra
waterproofing (e.g. Coax Seal, silicone sealant, etc.) over the whole
connector area, then you may have water infiltration into your coax...
the braid can easily "wick up" moisture, and you can end up with
water-soaked insulation and with water running down all the way into
your shack. I tend to prefer N connectors for this reason among others.

I've got a homemade Copper Cactus two-arm J-pole, at the end of about
30' of RG-8 (the full-size, not the "RG-8 mini" aka RG-8X) and both
bands work very well indeed. In fact, it's almost unusable with my
VX-5 because the strong signals overdrive the VX-5 RF section and I
end up with a lot of intermod from local paging transmitters.

--
Dave Platt AE6EO
Hosting the Jade Warrior home page: http://www.radagast.org/jade-warrior
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