Help me buy some cable and a few misc questions

[KBSherwood]

Hello everyone,

I've got a couple Wouxon KG-XS20g's coming and I'm planning on making one into a base station for the house. I'm going to mount a GMRS single band antenna to the peak of our two story house (IF I can get a second ladder that will straddle the lower peak...) and route that cable into the garage where the base station will live. I've measured and the run will be 43ft total, so I figured I'd get a nice round 50 footer. All of my research suggests the oft recommend LMR400 should be the go to, but I have a few questions I'm hoping you folks can put to rest for me. I likely wouldn't get times microwave but one of the house brands from DX engineering or USA Coax...

 

1. Has anyone here used USA Coax (MPD Digital) and can speak to their in house brand cable? I'm looking at the MPD400 ultraflex. DX engineerings website says they're 50ft wont be in stock until 12/28/23...

2. The antenna comes with an N female connector, the radio comes with an SO-239 (I believe that's the name), I can get MPD Digital to custom make me a cable with the correct ends (N male and PO-259) for a good price (I feel) BUT... should I go this route or get N male on both ends and use a small patch cable at the radio? My gut says the less connections/adapters the better, but lots of folks seem to like to use the patch cables at the radio side. 

3. The way I'd like to route the cable would be best with a 90* plug coming off the antenna, however I have read on here to avoid 90's. Is this true for my situation or are we talking more along the lines of connecting 2x 50ft cables with a 90 adapter in the middle that's bad? 

4. Solder or crimped ends? MPD offers both, I myself am in IT and have made and pulled literal miles of ethernet in my time, always crimped with great conductivity even up to 10Ghz, however I also do a lot of electronics repair/development work and will take a soldered connection over a crimped any day of the week. My guess would be that the individual making the cable at MPD would be capable of doing both. Is there a benefit to one over another if they had the tools and experience to do both correctly? I've seen comments on here that folks prefer crimped, I'm guessing that's if DIYing the cable?

5. I live in the PNW and it rains 6 months out of the year here. I know the N connector is "Water resistant" but I'm wondering about further water proofing, I have some decent shrink tubing that could put over the connector at the antenna, otherwise I could silicone the ish out of the exterior of the connector, I have some proper 33+ electrical tape I could wrap it in, but I wanted something a bit more permanent. 

Comments/opinions? 

Thank you very much!

[BoxCar]

2 hours ago, KBSherwood said:

Hello everyone,

I've got a couple Wouxon KG-XS20g's coming and I'm planning on making one into a base station for the house. I'm going to mount a GMRS single band antenna to the peak of our two story house (IF I can get a second ladder that will straddle the lower peak...) and route that cable into the garage where the base station will live. I've measured and the run will be 43ft total, so I figured I'd get a nice round 50 footer. All of my research suggests the oft recommend LMR400 should be the go to, but I have a few questions I'm hoping you folks can put to rest for me. I likely wouldn't get times microwave but one of the house brands from DX engineering or USA Coax...

 

1. Has anyone here used USA Coax (MPD Digital) and can speak to their in house brand cable? I'm looking at the MPD400 ultraflex. DX engineerings website says they're 50ft wont be in stock until 12/28/23...

2. The antenna comes with an N female connector, the radio comes with an SO-239 (I believe that's the name), I can get MPD Digital to custom make me a cable with the correct ends (N male and PO-259) for a good price (I feel) BUT... should I go this route or get N male on both ends and use a small patch cable at the radio? My gut says the less connections/adapters the better, but lots of folks seem to like to use the patch cables at the radio side. 

3. The way I'd like to route the cable would be best with a 90* plug coming off the antenna, however I have read on here to avoid 90's. Is this true for my situation or are we talking more along the lines of connecting 2x 50ft cables with a 90 adapter in the middle that's bad? 

4. Solder or crimped ends? MPD offers both, I myself am in IT and have made and pulled literal miles of ethernet in my time, always crimped with great conductivity even up to 10Ghz, however I also do a lot of electronics repair/development work and will take a soldered connection over a crimped any day of the week. My guess would be that the individual making the cable at MPD would be capable of doing both. Is there a benefit to one over another if they had the tools and experience to do both correctly? I've seen comments on here that folks prefer crimped, I'm guessing that's if DIYing the cable?

5. I live in the PNW and it rains 6 months out of the year here. I know the N connector is "Water resistant" but I'm wondering about further water proofing, I have some decent shrink tubing that could put over the connector at the antenna, otherwise I could silicone the ish out of the exterior of the connector, I have some proper 33+ electrical tape I could wrap it in, but I wanted something a bit more permanent. 

Comments/opinions? 

Thank you very much!

https://thewireman.com/product/1175-uhf-female-n-male/

https://thewireman.com/product/50ft-rg8x-mini-low-loss-pl259-installed/

You can't do much better.

[WRWE456]

I use the DX Engineering 400 Max pre made cables with type N connectors in 50 ft length. Great cable good quality and value. This is for a GMRS only Yagi antenna. I also have several other DX E. cables. Very happy with them. DX E. has a nice cable weatherproofing tape kit that I use. So far so good. https://www.dxengineering.com/parts/dxe-wpcc88-1

[PA141]

On 10/13/2023 at 1:58 PM, KBSherwood said:

 

3. The way I'd like to route the cable would be best with a 90* plug coming off the antenna, however I have read on here to avoid 90's. Is this true for my situation or are we talking more along the lines of connecting 2x 50ft cables with a 90 adapter in the middle that's bad? 

--Too many different connectors to provide  blanket answer.  RF Industries (IIRC) makes a nice 90 degree N connector for LMR400.  The center conductor solders directly to the center pin at a right angle and is covered with a cap.  I have not swept this on a VNA, but I think it should be no issue at GMRS.  I avoid 90's, but sometimes that is the only option.  If I have one at work, I will post the part number.

--Most of the cautions that you see are likely regarding adapters.  I wouldn't use one above 30 MHz.  Maybe Amphenol or other high quality connectors will perform better.  Avoid cheap import connectors.

I know the N connector is "Water resistant" but I'm wondering about further water proofing, ..... but I wanted something a bit more permanent. 

--Weatherproof any external connector.  Layering Scotch 33/88, then Scotch linerless splicing tape, then another layer of 33/88 is usually a good solution and easy to remove.  Lots of other options some better, some worse.  

 

 

[Sshannon]

On 10/13/2023 at 2:58 PM, KBSherwood said:

3. The way I'd like to route the cable would be best with a 90* plug coming off the antenna, however I have read on here to avoid 90's. Is this true for my situation or are we talking more along the lines of connecting 2x 50ft cables with a 90 adapter in the middle that's bad? 

I use an older silver plated Amphenol 90° connector at the back of my HF radio, but you might not want to use a more modern nickel plated one for GMRS after watching this video where Jim does a reflection loss test on right angle connectors.  Losses are almost nothing for the silver Amphenol ($$$) but high for the average run to the mill nickel plated connector, especially at higher frequencies.  If you decide you want to, get a good one that’s silver plated from Amphenol and your could even get one that’s PL-259 on the one end and N on the cable end, thus solving your conversion dilemma. 

 

[nokones]

I have seen up to 9 watts of reflected power loss from a cheap non-nickel plated 90 degree elbow fitting with a 50 watt rated radio and an antenna that was metered with a VSWR of 1.15:1 on a 462 MHz GMRS freq. (No, the antenna did not perform at VSWR of 1.15:1 with that elbow. The antenna was swept without the cheap elbow.) If you go cheap your radio will perform as for what you paid for, "NOTHING".

[KBSherwood]

Beautiful, thank you very much everyone. This is the wisdom I'm hoping to glean from the forums. 

1. I've spoken with the MPDigital/USA Coax folks and at least their presales customer service seems great, given the fact that DXE is out of stock until late december I'm likely going to purchase the cable f4rom MPD. The base stations should arrive today so I want to mock up how I plan to mount the home radio then order up the cable. I'll let you know how it goes with MPD.

2 & 3. @PA141 I appreciate the advice/guidance! @Sshannon many thanks for the video. this was essentially my concern. my antenna isnt all that high gain and the run "longer" so I want to be conservative with my potential losses. I am very familiar with amphenol connectors from my telephony/carrier grade POTS work, but since I'm not making the cable/I'll be "supporting" it (rather than calling a vendor to roll a truck to replace a faulty cable) I think I'm going to suck it up and keep all of the connectors straight runs and skip the patch cable at the radio end. I want as few potential points of failure/loss as possible. Since it will be stationary I'm not too concerned about cable flexibility after the initial install.

4. I've talked with a few avionics folks who have sold me on crimped cables rather than soldered. My quasi-educated mind says soldered would be better but everyone I've spoken to has told me their experience is that crimped is more reliable. 

5. I will be following the "water proofing" advice given above. Its going to be a PITA to get that antenna mounted where I want it, and I'm really not keen on the idea of having to do it a second time because I skimped somewhere the first go around.

EDIT: I thought it might be worth while to add the MPD Digital warranty info on their cables:

• WARRANTY INFO: 60 DAY Return for Any Reason - 1 YEAR Exchange or Repair for Any Reason - 5 YEARS Repair of Connectors - 10 YEARS Replacement for failure of Cable Jacket or Conductor. 

If I can get this setup to last me 10 years I'll be happy. 

Thanks again all!

Edited October 17, 2023 by KBSherwood
added warranty info