Hm. So, I should go with the thinnest, most manipulable coax I can find? I don't mind spending the few (in the total boatbux scheme of things) extra to get the best, and all this discussion about marine vs not and the salt water problems certainly has my attention.
Making the swap is the biggest hassle for me, not the money (though I'm your classic skinflint about where and how we spend our money), so I sure don't want to do it again if I don't have to! Meanwhile, I have a pigtail which end fell off (which could explain my original attempt to see about a working antenna's failure) which I'll rebuild. I'm currently kludging the Uniden (previously the nav radio with the rx problem) at the helm and could easily disconnect the arch antenna and use the pigtail and the one I fetched down from the mast to see about that antenna's condition. The one I put up there must be something else from Metz, designed for AM/FM, as it's got a very much longer whip... L8R Skip Morgan 461 #2 SV Flying Pig KI4MPC See our galleries at www.justpickone.org/skip/gallery ! Follow us at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TheFlyingPigLog and/or http://groups.google.com/group/flyingpiglog "You are never given a wish without also being given the power to make it come true. You may have to work for it however." (and) "There is no such thing as a problem without a gift for you in its hand (Richard Bach) ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jim" <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Monday, November 23, 2009 7:11 AM Subject: Re: [Liveaboard] FW: VHF ant > Vernon Densler wrote: >> It really doesn't matter which mode you are using (fm, code, ssb). The >> frequency is what matters for loss. The higher the frequency the more >> the >> loss matters. If you were doing 80 meters then you can use a piece of >> string for coax. On microwave you better not have any loss. VHF is Very >> High Frequency and Marine is above 2 meter so loss is important. At 100 >> feetish of coax if you use something with high loss you are going to see >> a >> big drop in your receive and how good your transmit is. Get good low >> loss >> cable trust me. Even though it's more important for a repeater try not >> to >> use LMR 400. Much too big for a mast anyway but anything like it has >> issues >> as well. The foil tends to causes some issues with noise on the radio. >> >> Vern >> >> > I didn't want to go into the gory details but what I was implying was if > he was trying to dig that DX station out of the static on 2 meters, he > needed all the help he could get. Seldom are we attempting to > communicate at the hairy edge of signal strength on VHF so it's of less > importance. Most of the time the curvature of the earth cuts off VHF > communications before signal strength due to distance does, so if we > lose a couple of db to coax, it isn't as important. That was my point. > I've operated at 1.5 watts into a repeater 150 miles away on FM. Of > course I was on the Appalachian Trail and the repeater was on a 2000' > tower. Signals were quite readable. So the loss of a couple of DB in a > piece of coax using a 25 watt radio where the effective distance is > usually 25 miles is a moot point. Sure there are extreme situations > where you want to talk with the CG at 75 miles out and they have the > tall tower, but that's the extreme. If you are really anal go with hard > line. Otherwise stick with 8X. > > Jim. > _______________________________________________ > Liveaboard mailing list > [email protected] > To adjust your membership settings over the web > http://www.liveaboardnow.org/mailman/listinfo/liveaboard > To subscribe send an email to [email protected] > > To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected] > The archives are at http://www.liveaboardnow.org/pipermail/liveaboard/ > > To search the archives > http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected] > > The Mailman Users Guide can be found here > http://www.gnu.org/software/mailman/mailman-member/index.html _______________________________________________ Liveaboard mailing list [email protected] To adjust your membership settings over the web http://www.liveaboardnow.org/mailman/listinfo/liveaboard To subscribe send an email to [email protected] To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected] The archives are at http://www.liveaboardnow.org/pipermail/liveaboard/ To search the archives http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected] The Mailman Users Guide can be found here http://www.gnu.org/software/mailman/mailman-member/index.html
