[FedCom] Re: shack upgrade

[R. Rankin]

> I'm slowly upgrading my shack's equipment. Earlier this month the upgrade
> was to a new 1000 channel scanner. sometime later this year, I will finally
> upgrade to a new shortwave receiver. In the meantime, I'm wondering if
> changing from what I believe to be RG-58 coax to something along the lines
> of RG-8 will help me in any way. The run from radio to antenna is less than
> 50 feet, but how much less I'm not sure. Suggestions?

Just about any coax will work fine on short wave, but for vhf, uhf and,
especially 800+ MHz. you will need either something like the 9913 that was
suggested or somethng like LMR-400 made by Times Wire and Cable.  I use 50 ft.
of the latter and it's even usable by my PCS phone at 1.9 GHz.  A compromise
that works reasonably well at less than 50 ft. is RG-6, the double-shielded,
cable TV 72 ohm stuff.  Your receiving gear won't notice the impedance
difference.  I use it with a secondary antenna and it isn't bad.  None of the
better grades of coaxial cable cotton much to sudden sharp bends.

Experimenting with this sort of thing is half the sport of the hobby.  :-)

Bob, w0nxn