RG6 Cable

[gkb]

Hello,

I think this is a really simple question but I’m hoping you can help.

I own a PY26 sailboat with a 38 foot mast. I mistakenly ran RG6 cabling for the radio. This process took me 2 days as it’s a really old boat with many intricacies.

I understand that is not ideal but will it work? I’m sailing on Lake Ontario.

Thanks in advance for the help.

[Chickenhawk]

I am not an expert and there are folks in here with considerably more antenna knowledge than I, but I ran the various cable options through a attenuation calculator. You should be fine. As long as the connectors are good and installed correctly, RG6 actually has slightly less cable loss than some of the other choices.

Plus, the loss is minimal in the marine band frequency ranges at that length of run anyway. There may be a slight mismatch in resistance but again that will be small in the VHF band and not likely to affect your transmissions much. Enjoy your boat!

[jwilkers]

@gkb

Hello,

I think this is a really simple question but I’m hoping you can help.

I own a PY26 sailboat with a 38 foot mast. I mistakenly ran RG6 cabling for the radio. This process took me 2 days as it’s a really old boat with many intricacies.

I understand that is not ideal but will it work? I’m sailing on Lake Ontario.

Thanks in advance for the help.

It is a 75 ohm cable, vs 50 ohm. Nonetheless, any impedance issues would be minimal. That cable is very low-loss. Some amateur radio operators even use it sometimes. You shouldn’t have any issues.