Testing hardline or coax

[VETCOMMS]

I recently acquired some hardline. How do I test it to see if it's still good?  What equipment is needed? 

Similarly,  how do I test hardline at a tower site to see if it's good?

[AdmiralCochrane]

LMR 400 is perfect for 50 - 60 ft runs.  Maybe even 100.  If most of your 100 is up, the height gain will more than offset the power loss.

[tcp2525]

2 hours ago, WRKC935 said:

At one point they did make 7/8 cable with a solid center.  But that was YEARS ago. 

My first question would be how long is this run of 7/8 that you have.  There is so much out there that guys believe that they NEED big cable for everything, but fail to realize that short runs (under 50 feet) other, more manageable cable is fine for the application.  If the piece of cable is in the hundreds of feet, putting effort into testing it is worth the effort.  If this is some 20 or 30 foot piece of line, it's really not worth the trouble to mess with it.

I'm not sure that I've seen any solid core hardline that large in 50 ohm. I know there was some 75 ohm large stuff, but that was always solid aluminum shield and copper clad aluminum center conductor. The smaller 50 ohm hardline we use today is corrugated copper shield with a copper clad aluminum center conductor. And as you said, the larger stuff has a hollow copper center conductor.

[LeoG]

My run at my house is 84'.  60 to the lightning arrester and 24' up the mast.  I'm using a M&P Hyperflex 13.  Seems to do OK.

[WRYZ926]

M & P lists the loss of 2.6 dB at 100 foot with Hyperflex 10 at 430 MHz. Then it is 3.6 dB of loss at 100 foot at 800 MHz

https://messi.it/dati/layout/files/CartellaElementi/hyperflex10-full-datasheet-eng-min.pdf

So you should be fine with a run of 84 feet as long as you are using a good antenna with some gain.

[LeoG]

I went through all the calculations of loss and gain for my system and it is what it is.  I have a Wouxun XSKG20+ that puts out 25 watts.  I screwed up.  I'm using the Hyperflex 13 not the 10.  So 1.7dB loss plus 4 fittings, lightning arrester.  Antenna is 7.2dBi gain so 5.05dBd gain.  Comes out to just about 50 watts ERP out of the antenna with 15.7 watts making it to the antenna.

 

10xLOG10(50/15.7)=5.03dB gain on antenna.  I'd call that close to 5.05dBd after you subtract 2.15 from 7.2 to convert from dBi to dBd.