Feedline for a less serious antenna system

[VK4WDM]

My question got lost among the technical discussion on the previous topic so I will start a new one!

This old bloke is getting confused (goes with the age) with all types and tech specs of cables.

My new setup will be as follows:

I will have 6m, 2m, and 70cm yagis fed by a single feed line with multiplexers at each end.

The total run will be about 35m but the line needs to be flexible as there are some corners to go round.

In plain terms, what should I use for the feed line?

73

Wayne VK4WDM

[VK4FP]

LMR400 will be fine Wayne.

[VK2KRR]

G'day Wayne

Depends how much loss your prepared to put up with and how tight those corners are you mentioned.

If you have enough pre-amp gain on RX and enough TX power you can over come some losses.

I'd probably run a single LDF 5-50 if it were me since you only have one run to do. You could maybe back down to a 4-50 depending on how much loss your prepared to put up with.

I only say this because your running 70cm in the mix. If you only had 6m & 2m you could probably get away with something less again. Like an LMR400 or RG213 even could work OK.

Really, cable choice depends on what you wish to achieve in the end.

*What price your prepared to pay (not only for cable but consider the connectors also)
*How much loss are you willing to allow in the system
*Flexability of the cable required
*Can you overcome some losses with amplifiers on TX RX

If your getting lost with tech specs on cables, try a few google searches and you should be able to find a few interesting pages on cable spec comparisons.

[VK2AAH]

Hi Wayne,

The question no-one has asked is where are the bends? Are they at the radio hut end? If it is you might use low loss feeder, either LDF4 or LMR400 between the antenna and the bends, maybe mount a surge suppressor plate near there with either a surge suppressor or an N type feed through, then RG213 on the inside. 35m is not a massive run so the difference in loss between the feeders over that distance (even at 430MHz) is not going to be massive. Loss can't be a big issue given that you are using a multiplexer that will probably add more loss than the difference achieved by going to a higher grade of feeder.

Cheers,


Richard
VK2AAH