The seller had a "make offer" so I tried $20 and it was set to auto accept. I
figure for $25 (with shipping) it's worth a shot for a new unit. The Trimble
data sheet says it is good for up to 75 feet of coax, I think I'll end up with
about 50 here. The antenna I have been using is a no-name pole mount unit with
25 feet of attached RG-59 coax that came with the TBolt "kit" I initially got.
I'm not a big fan of RG-59.
So what coax should I use? Many people say use good RG-6, although the Dranetz
power line units with GPS come with a 100 foot piece of 1/4" Heliax, I have to
imagine that would be better. Here's some on epay: 360492678643, but with wrong
connectors. Expensive, though, here are approx attenuation numbers at the
frequency of interest:
RG-59 10.4 dB/100 ft
RG-6 8.4 dB/100 ft
Heliax 7.4 dB/100 ft FSJ1-50A
RG-11 5.7 dB/100 ft
(Yes, I'm aware of the impedance differences)
It seems, just go with quad shield RG-6 and be done with it. I even have part
of a spool of that laying around. Maybe more of an issue is how do you properly
connect a TNC to that stuff (the antenna has a TNC).
Peter
On 3/10/2013 11:01 AM, Volker Esper wrote:
Hi Peter,
Why not. The antenna is optimized for that purpose (receiving GPS L1),
omnidirectional and tuned to the GPS frequency, snow skids down, birds can't
land on it. As N0UU affirms, there's nothing further sensational inside.
I don't know, how proficient you are with radio frequency stuff, but a gain of
35dB does not guarantee a good reception. You primarily need gain to
compensate (cable) losses. The noise figure (NF), for example, can get much
more important.
What antenna do you use at the time? If you are using a magnetic car roof
antenna a Trimble Bullet surely will be a better choice...
There are lots of GPS antennas on ebay for even less than 30 Dollars. I run
four different antennas, which I purchased from ebay and none of them has
failed so far.
Volker
Am 10.03.2013 06:07, schrieb Peter Gottlieb:
I'd like to get a better antenna for my Thunderbolt.
I see Trimble bullet antennas type 57860-00 on ebay for $30 or so, specs look
to be 5 volt 35 dB gain.
Would something like this be a good choice?
Peter
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