[Mr C]

Mounted a Yagi antenna 25 foot in the air. The Yagi came with 20' foot of RG58U Low Loss cable. I need at least another 10' foot but would like to add another 20' foot of cable. Without the Yagi connected to my cell phone I get either No Service or maybe one weak bar. With the 20' foot cable that came with the Yagi an the Yagi connected to my phone I'm getting a weak 3 bars but a good strong 2 bars. My question is, How much cable can I add before I will notice a loss in signal? At this time I am not using a amplifier but hoping to add one in the near future. We are using Nextel.Thanks

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[esvanr]

Mounted a Yagi antenna 25 foot in the air. The Yagi came with 20' foot of RG58U Low Loss cable. I need at least another 10' foot but would like to add another 20' foot of cable. Without the Yagi connected to my cell phone I get either No Service or maybe one weak bar. With the 20' foot cable that came with the Yagi an the Yagi connected to my phone I'm getting a weak 3 bars but a good strong 2 bars. My question is, How much cable can I add before I will notice a loss in signal? At this time I am not using a amplifier but hoping to add one in the near future. We are using Nextel.Thanks

Any form of RG-58 cable is not really *low loss* at higher frequencies. It is intended for use in short run mobile (10-15 ft) applications at frequencies under 512 MHz. One *could* get decent results with RG-58 for a mobile cell phone antenna if the length is kept short (<15 ft?). For any fixed-station applications above 512 MHz (such as cellular phone), I would prefer something like Andrews 1/2" Heliax cable or Times Microwave LMR400 cable. And at the higher UHF/SHF freqs (800 Mhz to over 1 GHz), keep the co-ax connectors/adapters to a minimum, as they add to the signal loss.

[Mr C]

Thanks for the great information. That was very helpful information. Let me ask you this, what is a good brand of adaptor? I've seen them eBay, at flea markets and cell phone stores. What should I look for in getting a good adaptor.
Thanks again for the cable advice