I've seen 500 feet feeds from LNBs through RG11. That cable can be a pain to terminate.
Quality Coax
- Thread starter Jackonearth
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I have weekend warrior prosumer type experience with RG6 but i have found some differences. The cheap RG6 is fine for typical Dish or Direct runs. When you start running long drops into crowded areas with lots of electrical nearby I've had issues with the cheap stuff. It started me down the path of trying more highly rated stuff. I've found the Belsen 1694A to be excellent in a semi crowded cabinet or rack. If you have a busy cabinet or rack I use Canare CFB RG6. Both are excellent although the Canare is pretty stiff but it has better attenuation compared to the Belden. Both are way more expensive than cheapo but cheapo works fine in most applications. However, if you look at the Belden and Canare stuff you can easily see the difference. I also buy my stuff from Markertek. If you create an account you can get good deals on 500' and 1000' rolls.
here's the Canare
Here's the Belden.
lIMHO these are the gold standards.
here's the Canare
Here's the Belden.
lIMHO these are the gold standards.
Good choice. We use exclusively Belden 1694A for the IF runs in our commercial facility. Miles of it.
Solid copper is good if the run is long and you have an LNB that consumes some current. DirecTV used to only specify solid copper center conductor. Single shield 3GHz rated is also a good idea and when I say single shield that would be 100% foil with a token braid. If you are bundling multiple cables tightly together you want to consider quad shield, otherwise the loss specs are identical between single dual and quad shield. You don't really need quad shield if you are near a TV or FM transmitter, etc, because single shield is adequate below 1GHz. Above 1GHz and higher the shield is less effective and L-band will leak some between cables so this is where quad shield is needed. I've had cable trays a foot deep in RG-6 with different signals on them and had to use quad shield otherwise you could pick up the wrong satellite with enough signal on the wrong cable due to leakage.
I've run miles and miles of coax inside huge satellite facilities and usually had a spectrum analyzer looking at each cable at some point and have seen what happens when cables leak. Its not pretty and fix is either move the cables far apart or replace the entire run with quad shield.
BTW, Belden 1694A is an excellent cable and commonly used in the transmit IF path of satellite uplinks. Its only single foil shield with a heavier braid than most, but not as good as quad shield if your tightly bunding cables at L-band. 1694A is also very expensive for consumer applications at over $200 for 500ft where good quality 3GHz swept solid copper consumer RG-6 runs maybe $100 for 1,000ft.
Canare is also excellent but you need very specific connectors, strippers and crimpers usually provided by Canare and they aren't cheap. The picture of the Canare cable above shows the stripper is not adjusted right and it nicked the center conductor. That needs to be fixed.
I've run miles and miles of coax inside huge satellite facilities and usually had a spectrum analyzer looking at each cable at some point and have seen what happens when cables leak. Its not pretty and fix is either move the cables far apart or replace the entire run with quad shield.
BTW, Belden 1694A is an excellent cable and commonly used in the transmit IF path of satellite uplinks. Its only single foil shield with a heavier braid than most, but not as good as quad shield if your tightly bunding cables at L-band. 1694A is also very expensive for consumer applications at over $200 for 500ft where good quality 3GHz swept solid copper consumer RG-6 runs maybe $100 for 1,000ft.
Canare is also excellent but you need very specific connectors, strippers and crimpers usually provided by Canare and they aren't cheap. The picture of the Canare cable above shows the stripper is not adjusted right and it nicked the center conductor. That needs to be fixed.
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You're right about the Canare strip, the tool was not adjusted properly. The Canare strip tool sucks, I hate it because it takes tons of minor adjustments to set up perfectly. The Canare terminations are FABULOUS though as is the crimp tool. I use their RCA and F connectors and they are top quality. The shielding on the Canare is extremely dense and slightly better than the Belden. I use Canare in extremely tight situations where RG6 and electrical are in close proximity. In my experience electrical interference impacts RG6 which is why I choose the best shielding. Belden and Canare provide that.
The Canare picture is from the Markertek catalog. Not a strip I made. It wouldn't matter though because their RCA and F connectors also include a crimp pin that seats on the dialect. A small nick would have zero impact on the connection since the crimp pin is the primary connector.
I can tell you that the insides of a DirecTV satellite uplink facility probably has hundreds of miles of Belden 1694A and tens of thousands of Canare BNC and F connectors. They are a DirecTV internal standard. Some of the very first installations at the Castle Rock and California Broadcast Centers used Canare 75 ohm coaxial cable but at some point Belden became the default for most 75 ohm cable internally at DIrecTV. (Oops, is this a Dish Network thread?)
For outside use at LNBs I went with T&B Snap-N-Seal connectors due to the superior weatherproofing and good insertion loss/return loss testing.
For outside use at LNBs I went with T&B Snap-N-Seal connectors due to the superior weatherproofing and good insertion loss/return loss testing.
Gilbert used to make a good all metal compression connector before being sued PPC.
I remember the original snap and seal connectors that came as a 2 piece system.
You would literally snap the compression connector off the fitting, place it on the cable and compress with a special tool.
I also miss the digicom connectors which used a radial compression. A big improvement from hex crimp fittings
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I remember the original snap and seal connectors that came as a 2 piece system.
You would literally snap the compression connector off the fitting, place it on the cable and compress with a special tool.
I also miss the digicom connectors which used a radial compression. A big improvement from hex crimp fittings
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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