Copper clad steel coax on power injector

U

Unregistered

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#1
#1
My antenna has a power injector and the coax is copper clad steel. I also have a distribution amp from channel master and the coax they provide is also copper clad. Why do they do this if these devices are designed to pass power?

Would I get better results by taking the injector apart and rewiring a solid copper coax in its place?

Thank you
 
J

Jim Navotney

Guest
#2
#2
Copper clad steel center conductor coax is fine at the shorter distances that most home installations need.
If you stay under 60 feet between the power injector and the preamp you will likely be just fine with any CCS RG6 and any preamp.
The trouble starts when you go beyond that length since DC voltage drop will be causing more than 15% voltage drop in some cases which will in the best case scenario reduce the gain of the amplifier and in the worst case cause it to completely stop working.
Since 90% of preamp manufacturers don't publish the current draw of their preamps, most have no idea what the actual current draw is.
Winegard is the only manufacturer that still publishes the real gain, noise figure, and current draw of their preamps.
And while the old 12 volt Winegard AP8700 preamp recommended a maximum coax length of 150ft, the new 5 volt LNA-200 preamp lists it's current draw at 130ma so if you do the voltage drop calculations for CCS RG6, you will see that 60 feet is about the maximum length you dare use while if you use solid copper RG6 you can easily run the same preamp from 3 times as far.
 
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