Batboard

Just curious - how great is the difference between the standard black RG-58 A/U solid conductor cable used on the standard VHF & UHF NMO antenna kits from MOL and the "low loss" white cable used on the 800/900 MHz antenna kits (like RRA4918)...

I have a source for both for at a reasonable price, just curious if it's worth the expense to go with the low loss cable for all 4 bands in the vehicle (VHF/UHF/800/900).

Thanks!

ANY improvement, be it just claimed or actually true, in your 800/900
mHz system is probably very worthwhile, even for short mobile antenna
runs. OTOH, RG58 is what most people still use for VHF and UHF installs,
owing to the fact that the runs are so short. The only place you'd run
into a special situation would be where you wanted to run high power.

Personally I don't like solid conductor coax, because it's all or nothing at
all, meaning that if it breaks you're dead.

Tom in D.C. wrote:ANY improvement, be it just claimed or actually true, in your 800/900
mHz system is probably very worthwhile, even for short mobile antenna
runs. OTOH, RG58 is what most people still use for VHF and UHF installs,
owing to the fact that the runs are so short. The only place you'd run
into a special situation would be where you wanted to run high power.

Personally I don't like solid conductor coax, because it's all or nothing at
all, meaning that if it breaks you're dead.

I'm not wild about solid conductor coax either, just seems /\/\ likes to use it quite a bit for their current antenna kits...

Either way, I'm looking at maybe 5' total for all 4 runs - trunk mount radios and antennas are either rear roof or trunk lip mount. My concern I guess is which one has a better amount of shielding to prevent bleed over between the 4 RF decks.

Larsen also makes a nice low loss NMO mount with double shield cable, been a while since I installed it but I believe it's a stranded center conductor. (Looks like they might have picked this mount up from Hirschmann).

The Larsen NMOKUD is a solid conductor with a dual shield.

I have some Larsen double-shielded RG58 that I use and it has a stranded centre conductor.

Granted it's a few years old and perhaps they don't make it anymore.

As va3wxm says, there are much better cable(s) available today than the old teflon "White" cable Motorola used back in the early 800 days.

I also recommend a stranded center conductor cable for mobile applications, especially trunk mounted antennas that the cable will be flexing when the trunk is opened. I also second the double shielded cable in multiple radio installations.