Topband: RG6 coax questions

[Guy Olinger K2AV]

This is more to all the readers of the list, rather than to Ray
specifically.  He's ALREADY down in the swamp up to his knees with
invested money...

What I now advise specifically any time one asks, after a couple
decades of poor experience with "RG6" types, is

1) always use flooded "RG6".  It helps with nicks and critters, and it
also keeps the aluminum foil from oxidizing, since air/water never
touches.  When the aluminum foil oxidizes, the contact between the
foil, and the braid and everything else becomes resistive.

2) always use polyethylene jacketed stuff, because ham apps have "RG6"
laying on the ground or buried.  All the PVC stuff will go bad
outdoors eventually.  PE has staying power.

3) DX engineering sells the flooded PE stuff and the CORRECT
connectors and tools for the stuff they sell. You can do the dog work
yourself, but it is a royal PITA and there are NO standards.  I've
rebuilt car engines, but I will never, ever, do ball joints again.
"Doing" "RG6" from a stack of catalogs is over there toward ball
joints, just for different reasons.  Pay for the right stuff, and
forget it when you're done.  I don't want my very hard work on
listening antennas to slowly decay on me getting worse every year, and
then have to do the feedline, including buried stuff over again after
I do a loss test when I decide that I can't hear so well any more.
And then be peeved at myself for a long time, because all that
explains some contest scores.

What Dish network and DirecTV get away with, and what kind of specific
stresses ham installations put on "RG6" are two completely different
things.

What commercial installers, who are using box car loads of a
particular kind of coax and connectors, do about your problem is to
hire an engineer who then guarantees that the 5000 quantity of the
cable tools they just bought exactly match the box car load of cable
and connectors, and continues quality control on everything.  And they
keep up a running science on exactly what they have to pay for to
insure they don't have to do return visits because of cable issues.
They are NOT spending any money whatsoever to extend the viability of
their coax solution into your ham app situations.  Quite the opposite.

As you are finding out, there is a large variation in "RG6" cable for
different usage and a similar variation in the tools.

At least with DX Engineering you have the engineering done for you,
and hams should NEVER use anything besides flooded PE jacketed "RG6"
for ham apps. You can find the right cable yourself, but you are on
your own getting matching tools and connectors.  And how much money
did you actually save after a couple of "oops" iterations?  Are you in
the hole vs. DX engineering the first time out?

At any rate, 73, and good luck,  Guy

On Wed, May 11, 2011 at 4:17 AM, Ray Benny <rayn6vr at cableone.net> wrote:
> I'm getting ready to wire up a Hi-Z 4 square RX antenna using RG6 CATV
> cable. Yesterday, I went out and bought an Ideal stripping and Ideal
> compression tool for RG6 from Lowes. Since I have never used a compression
> tool, I went to uTube and viewed several videos on how to use them.
>
> The spool of RG6 I have is CommSpec F6SSVX. In using the stripping tool,
> I found this RG6 to have double shield and double braid. With the
> compression I bought, the foil and braid will not go onto the fitting, its
> too big. I then removed the outer braid and shield, keeping the inner braid
> and shield in tact, the compression fitting then went on, but after
> compressing the fitting, it literally fell off. This fitting has a blue
> plastic sleeve that gets pressed into the main body of the connector from
> the back side.
>
> I went to HD today and found an Ideal compression fitting for RG6 Quad cable
> that look like the right types, I think. It appears that the whole body of
> this fitting gets pressed forward to the front.
>
> I have several questions:
>
> 1. Does it sound like the newer compression fitting are the right ones for
> my cable? I'll try tmw, but I'd like someone input as to if I have the right
> parts.
>
> 2. I could buy another 1000ft spool of the more common RG6, single shield
> (foil) - single braid quite cheaply from a local salvage store. My question,
> is the double shield/braid that much better?
>
> 3. I looked at the CommSpec web site but could not find F6SSVX, only F6SSVV.
> Are they the same coax?
>
> 4. Is what I have, F6SSVX considered Quad cable (double foil, double braid)?
>
> Tnx for your input.
>
> Ray,
> N6VR
> Prescott, AZ
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