Am I the only one who fell for that cheap coax cable trap?

I wasted $250 on a bulk roll of RG-58 from a no-name seller on eBay last spring. The shielding was so thin I had to re-crimp every connection on a King Air 350 install three months later. Has anyone else had to replace bad coax on a customer's dime after using bargain bin stuff?

2 comments

2 Comments

willow_morgan14d ago

Is it really that big of a deal though? Like sure, cheap coax isn't gonna be top tier, but double the loss at 1GHz sounds like a huge exaggeration for a few bucks saved. I've used off-brand stuff on smaller GA planes and never had any issues after the install. Maybe the problem isn't the cable itself but how you're crimping it or the connectors you're pairing it with. Plus, a lot of those forum tests are done in perfect lab conditions that don't match real world use anyway.

paigem4514d ago

Saw a thread on an avionics forum where a guy tested budget RG-58 and the loss was almost double spec at 1GHz. That's not just shielding, the dielectric is probably cheap too. Always worth spending the extra few bucks on Belden or Times Microwave if you want to avoid a do-over.