> Within the last year I/we have had at least 3 episodes of LMR-400
> feed-line causing serious trouble on repeater systems. At least two
> of those serious problems have started some x-value of time after
> the lmr-400 cable was first installed.
But how can this be Skipp, with so many on this list reporting such great
results with LMR-type cables on their repeaters? ;-)
My misery with braid+foil cables dates back to the mid/late 80's when 9913
was gaining popularity. I used a 9913 jumper between the Polyphaser and
duplexer when I installed a ham repeater. It had just a hint of desense
when first installed, which I wrote off as tower noise, but after less than
a year, it had worsened to the point of requiring a full investigation which
ultimately revealed that 9913 jumper to be the cause. Replaced with
something else (RG214 I think) and the desense was totally eliminated.
Around the same time, a ham friend who worked for one of the cell carriers
reported that they were pulling ALL 9914 patch cables (similar to 9913, but
with a foam dielectric) out of all of the cell sites in the market (which,
back then, was probably only a few dozen). I think they were factory cables
that came with early Lucent equipment. Anyway, they had so many problems
that they were replacing them all with 1/2" Superflex.
Nowadays, I'll use LMR400DB (DB = direct burial, i.e. flooded-braid) for
short runs to non-duplex link yagis or home station use, but that's it. I'm
not rich enough to be cheap.
--- Jeff
