Mini 8 rg8 v rg213 ???

Hi all will I actually notice much difference as bought rg8 mini instead of 213 by mistake ?? It will be approximately a 50ft length.......just don’t wanna use it if I am going to have a noticeable difference on such a short length being used

Hi Andy,

You will have greater feedline loss but to be honest at HF frequencies I doubt you're going to notice much difference. There are a few calculators online that you could use to get an idea of the difference. If you are feeling really technical you can use the information usually stamped on the coax itself or from the supplier to do the calculations yourself. Personally I would just use it.

73's Gary.

That has got to be one of the most sensible answers I have ever witnessed for a coax question

I'm with Gary on this one Andy, I'd personally just use it too!

(You'll get into the proverbial dog chasing its tail scenario calculating coax losses).

73's
Victor

Ok cheers for the replies:) as it’s only a short run I am going to stick with it for now .Thanks again

Victor wrote:

That has got to be one of the most sensible answers I have ever witnessed for a coax question

I'm with Gary on this one Andy, I'd personally just use it too!

(You'll get into the proverbial dog chasing its tail scenario calculating coax losses).

73's
Victor

You know how technical these things can get Vic, I tend to take the simple way out!!

Ha, ha! I'm with you there Gary. Brilliant!

I'd use it too, but you can measure the loss, you don't need a calculator, just a power meter and dummy load. If you have a PL plug on each end then measure the radio's output into a dummy load with a short patch lead, note the power, then replace the patch lead with the coax length and check the power again, you'll know how much you're losing then.

I've got 20m of RG58 and I get 30% loss at 27Mhz.

And as bad as that sounds it's not even half a S point.

Just using generic figures rather than asking what exact make of cable you have, RG8x loses you about 0.75dB more at 28MHz than RG58 per 100ft/30m.

https://offgridham.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/coax-loss-chart.jpg

Now, given you have 50 feet, meaning less than one half dB of difference (With 3dB being half power and 1dB being 10%), I very much doubt you’ll notice it.

To put that further into perspective, 1 S-point is 6dB, and 6dB is quarter power.

I quite like Mini RG-8, I have about a 20m run of it into my back garden to the whip on my back fence. The only thing is the horrible cheap PL259s most places seem to sell to put on them, with the screw-in reducer from an RG213-sized entry. Westlake and Barenco both sell "proper" ones and I will upgrade my plugs at some point.