What's the general opinion of this
RG6 cable product offering?
Its states
- 1mm solid copper coated steel conductor
- 64 x .12mm aluminium braid
- Foam dielectric
- Aluminium foil shielding
- PVC Sheath
- Overall diameter 6.4mm
- Nominal attenuation @ 1MHz = 2.82dB
- 75 Ohm
To break down why this is bad:
- 1mm solid copper coated steel conductor and Nominal attenuation @ 1MHz = 2.82dB
This is a minor point, but steel corrodes in the presence of moisture in the air. The anodised copper coating doesn't cover the cut end of the cable.
What's more concerning is the attenuation. This is signal loss, and it is normally given at a frequency, and the dB level, and importantly the length which is often
per 100m. This one doesn't do that, but we'll give them the benefit of the doubt that it's not
per 10m.
1MHz isn't a frequency that terrestrial TV uses. It's not even baseband video (5MHz - yellow RCA, composite video). That's alarm bells immediately. You see, signal loss increases with frequency. Too much , and the effect is to reduce the length of cable you can use before the signal becomes too weak.
WF100 is less than 1.6dB for 100m measured at 5MHz. Given that 5MHz is a higher frequency, and that 2.8dB is almost twice the loss at a lower frequency, I think it's safe to presume the eBay stuff is
twice as lossy across the board.
That's bad.
- 64 x .12mm aluminium braid and Aluminium foil shielding
Just cheap. It works, but there's not much density to the braid. Your old air-spaced coax looks better in this regard. Moisture is the enemy of aluminium, too. If the braid gets wet it can simply begin to dissolve, and there's you tearing your hair out trying to find out why there's big losses in the signal.
I've been to aerial jobs where cheap cable was used. The aerial might have been installed 6 or 8 years, and what's happened is the PVC sheath has cracked due to weathering. UV from sunlight makes it brittle, then freezing and wind causes it to crack. There's your moisture ingress point (see above re: alu braid). This isn't all PVC. It's just PVC without enough of the UV protection ingredient. As basic as it is by today's standards, the sheath on your old CT100 could still be good after 30 years. Get Webro WF100 if you want that kind of trouble-free service life.
- Foam dielectric
- Overall diameter 6.4mm
- 75 Ohm
These are about the only acceptable specs on that cable.
Your eBay cable is £14 for 50m, so the equivalent of £28/100m. This
TX100 is £45/100m. It's 28p per metre and a whole load of trouble down the line, or 45p a metre for peace of mind.
