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I'm new to this hobby and I'm trying to make me a QFH antenna for NOAA satelites myself. I would like to know if I can use AC15-380WH 4/8K TV coax cable with double shielding as reciever for the antenna. Would that protection disturb waves? Should I use something else?

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  • $\begingroup$ help me remember: you're probably looking for the 1.1 GHz downlink, right? $\endgroup$
    – Marcus Müller
    Jan 23 at 20:37

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TV coax cable will work well for connecting the antenna to the receiver. It is low loss and low cost. It's 75 ohms which creates a small mismatch but that won't matter much.

The double screening in the description is no problem. The cable has a primary screen of aluminium foil, which gives excellent high frequency performance, backed up by a very sparse braid of copper wires, which help with low frequencies, and give mechanical strength to the junction with the connector.

It is more difficult to make mechanical and electrical connections to this cable, than (say) RG316 or RG58, so it depends on how your antenna will be constructed. If you plan to solder the cable to the antenna, then rather use a single-screened 50 ohm all-copper cable. RG-6 and its variants can only really be terminated with F-type connectors. You should then find some adapters to convert this to SMA or whatever you need for the antenna and radio. (look at ebay, amazon, etc).

This cable is not suitable for making the antenna itself, for that you should use something like 14 or 12 ga copper wire, or something else that's simply stiff bare wire, like a coathanger.

A web search for this cable name seems to indicate that it might be a thin, flexible patch lead, which is OK, but it sometimes has push-on connectors instead of screw connectors, which is not great. You should try to get cable with screw-type F connectors, push-on connectors are unreliable.

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  • $\begingroup$ thanks for the answer! Could I use the copper wire from this cable for antenna itself? Is it too thin? $\endgroup$
    – Marcel Kopera
    Jan 24 at 8:33
  • $\begingroup$ The inner core wire would work, but it is quite thin and flexible so the antenna would be very floppy. If you're sticking the wire to the surface of a plastic cylinder, then it will be fine. $\endgroup$
    – tomnexus
    Jan 24 at 15:15

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