On Tue, 26 Oct 2004 01:34:13 GMT, Never anonymous Bud
wrote:

Trying to steal the thunder from Arnold, asym on Tue, 26 Oct 2004 00:19:28 GMT spoke:

I have a Pro-2052 w/ about 70ft of RG58 going up into the attic to hit
an RS discone. Here's what I will say, is that even with the really
crummy cable, reception is much better than it was with the other
antennas I tried, along with their shorter, higher quality cable runs.

But the better coax will get you 3 to 4 times more signal into your radio.
Stuff you never even KNEW was there will come in clean.

Oh I don't doubt that, I was just making the point that height matters
a lot more. If I put the discone back down of the attic on a 20ft run
instead of a 70ft run, I lose reception on some things.. especially
the UHF and higher bands, where attenuation in the RG58 is terrible.

Obviously, height *and* good cable is the best. But if you're in a
situation where it's one or the other, go for height first, replace
the cable later if you can.


The better cabling is an option (I'm looking for a good deal on some
9913 myself)

LRM400 UltraFlex will make running the line much easier.
Yes, it costs about 30% more, but it's worth it.

davisrf (www.davisrf.com) has 9913 that they claim is 2.6dB per 100ft
at 400MHz.. while they say LMR400 is around 2.1.

But the real clincher is.. $0.46/ft for 9913, or $0.64/ft for 9913
FLEXI-4XL. For a difference of about 0.4db for the length I'm
running, again at ~400mhz.

Only quoting 400 all the time for two reasons.. one, it's in the
'middle' of the coverage of most broadband scanners/antenns.. second,
I transmit in that band, so it's a concern.

On Tue, 26 Oct 2004 03:41:58 GMT, asym said
in rec.radio.scanner:

Obviously, height *and* good cable is the best. But if you're in a
situation where it's one or the other, go for height first, replace
the cable later if you can.

Or go for the height and use a good low noise preamp mounted right at
the antenna.

On Wed, 27 Oct 2004 02:21:05 GMT, Al Klein wrote:

On Tue, 26 Oct 2004 03:41:58 GMT, asym said
in rec.radio.scanner:

Obviously, height *and* good cable is the best. But if you're in a
situation where it's one or the other, go for height first, replace
the cable later if you can.

Or go for the height and use a good low noise preamp mounted right at
the antenna.

Yeah that's another good option as well.. a decent preamp can cost
quite a bit less than a long run of great cable like 9913 or 400..