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1L243's avatar
1L243
Explorer II
Jun 30, 2019

Portable Satellite

I have a Tailgator Portable satellite dish. It comes with 50 feet of coax. Is there any problem with going longer on the coax. I was thinking of going with 150 foot reel. I camp at times in one location where you have to get out from under the trees and 50 feet just is not enough...
  • GordonThree wrote:
    DFord wrote:
    Make sure it's rated for at least 3Mhz.


    GHz :)


    I stand corrected! The cable has to be rated for the job it's intended to used for. 3Ghz!
  • I have a tailgater and have run 135’, with connectors at 50’ and one at 35’. It worked fine for me. The tech at tailgater told me they say 50’ because they have to be able to guarantee a HD signal. If SD is ok for you use it.
  • 2oldman wrote:
    I think RG 6 is the recommended grade.
    Yes, except for 150' may not work well. And there's different grades, and may want the solid copper center conductor, quad shield. Solid copper center conductor (not copper clad steel) may be what you want if you have a dish with a motor and/or an amp at the dish and don't get the aluminum shielded stuff.

    For long runs like 150' you'd probably need RG11 but it's thicker and a lot stiffer and probably don't want it unless needed for sure due to signal loss. RG11 isn't cheap either for the good stuff and you probably want to order it with the connectors pre-installed

    Note that it is best to avoid using a connector to join two or more sections of coax, esp. if joining RG6 & RG11 and when long runs are involved. Best thing is one single length of coax from dish to the RV. Do you know if the coax in your RV is RG6 or RG59?
  • I use 75' of quad-shield (single piece) coax with a Pathway X2 all the time with good results. I had to bypass the internal RV coax setup because of its poor quality cabling and connections, though. With the single-cable automatic antennas, it's a matter of control voltage drop and signal loss - both of which happen with poor quality coax and/or very long runs.

    Rob
  • I'm using 150' on a reel, no breaks in the run. Good quality coax and it'll work.
  • For a reciever powered antenna, anything over 50', you start having problems. If you have a seperate 12 volt power supply, you should be good.
  • Make sure it's rated for at least 3Ghz.

    (on edit, corrected to show 3Ghz instead of 3Mhz)

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