Cable compatibility with Antenna

Hi: Is there an antenna (2.4GHz) which uses a Cat5 cable which is inexpensive - Where? and is there an advantage with 100' of cable between LMR400 and Cat5? Thanks

Reply to
Regent via HWKB.com
Loading thread data ...

"Regent via HWKB.com" hath wroth:

No. Antennas use coaxial cable, not twisted pair.

Yes. LMR400 has a loss of 6.7dB/100ft. That means if you shove your transmit power into one end of the 100ft coax cable, you'll get about

1/4th of the power out the other end. Same with the receiver sensitivity in the other direction.

CAT5e cable is only rated to 350Mhz where the loss is about

15dB/100ft. Extrapolating to 2.4GHz, CAT5e would have a loss of about 100dB/100ft which means you'll lose almost all your power in the CAT5e cable. You'll also have to match the 100 ohm CAT5e impedance with the 50 ohms of the access point and antenna.

Bad idea. Forget it.

Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

You are really talking about two totally different things here - apples and oranges so to speak.

LMR400 is low loss coaxial cable designed to transmit microwave radio signals.

Cat5 is multiple twisted pairs designed to transmit ethernet data signals.

LMR400 is good cable but a 100 foot run will still introduce a lot of loss (over 6 db as Jeff pointed out).

The way to avoid that loss is to use an outdoor/weatherproof access point (or bridge depending on your requirement) close to the antenna.

Then, and only then, you can use cat5 cable to bring the ethernet signals the rest of the way.

Reply to
Wayne.B

Wayne.B wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

Which is what this poster has been told several times already in previous threads on the same subject.

Reply to
DanS

On Wed, 07 Feb 2007 05:39:47 GMT, "Regent via HWKB.com" wrote in :

No, not at any price. To use CAT5 cable, you'll need to put your radio at the (far) end of the cable, probably powered by PoE (Power over Ethernet).

Reply to
John Navas

[snip mode one]

--[Originally from 2/3/2007 3:01 PM] Regent wrote: > Hi Guys (and Gals) > Can a Cushcraft Pc2415 Antenna be converted from COAX to Cat5? I have > purchased a used one and have no documentation at all. If it can be, how?

--[And then on 2/4/2007 4:53 PM] Regent via HWKB.com wrote: > Thanks, > I believe I now have enough info to proceed. > D

--[And asking for more help on 2/6/2007 11:39 PM] Hi: Is there an antenna (2.4GHz) which uses a Cat5 cable which is inexpensive - Where? and is there an advantage with 100' of cable between LMR400 and Cat5? Thanks

[snip mode off]

Apparently not...("have enough info to proceed")

Reply to
decaturtxcowboy

Reply to
Regent via HWKB.com

Exactly. This is how my Senao 3220 works and it comes with POE as standard equipment:

formatting link
I can now recommend it since I got mine working... :-)

Reply to
Wayne.B

Cabling-Design.com Forums website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.