I have gotten several requests from customers to have the "pigtail" cables and connectors be modified to be longer so that different types of antennas can be connected to the Connectorized PMP 450 Subscriber Modules.
Please let me know if you think this would be beneficial for you, and exactly how long you need the cable to be.
As you may know, the longer the cable, the more signal loss, so we'd like to only make it as long as is necessary.
Please respond in this thread with your opinion, as we are actively investigating making a change for the PMP 450 Connectorized SMs.
We find that one of the lines tends to be about 1 1/2" - 2" to short for some panel antenna configurations. This forces the bend in the line to be beyond a recommended angle. Perferably if we can keep the line / connector loss below 1.5db It should be exceptable. If we are connecting to a dish with a feed horn as previously mentioned then a additional jumper is likely the best solution.
The loss in this type of cable is about 0.5 dB per foot... so additional 6" would be around 0.25 dB additional loss.
Thanks for the responses so far.
Couple of follow up questions:
1) If you do replace the cable for "feedhorn" applications where a longer cable makes more sense for installation, do you open the housing, unplug from the board, and replace the cable assembly entirely (like the KP cable)?
2) Are there ever cases where you jumper a second cable (like a N-Female to N-male cable extension)? Is there a common source for something like this?
3) If we simply changed our cable from 2' (the current size) to 3' (12" longer), would this satisfy everyone's needs without adversely affecting anyone? The cost of the radio will not change.
4) Basically, can anyone think of any reasons not to do this? (i.e. the only downside I can think of is an additional 0.5 dB of loss, can you live with that?)
1) No, we add a jumper with one side of the jumper with a M connector and the other side with a F connector. This adds ruffly 2db of loss but is generally acceptable due to the increased gain of the dish.
2) See #1
3) In our installations a 3' cable would be suffcient in all but Dish / Feed horn applications.
4) I'm honestly a bit torn on this one. I believe we maybe lossing the .5db due to straining the cable anyway on some panel installations but it will not resolve the loss on the dish installations and thus it would add additional loss making a dish installation closer to a neglagable gain over i high gain panel.
Speaking from our perspective we would GREATLY appriciate longer cables as we always have to purchase new ones from KP. We're buying the 48" cables from KP ( KPPA-MCX-N-48) and attaching them with every connectorized 450.
We remove the case remove the factory cables and place these on (along with labeling the vertical cable)
I spoke to our operations manager and he said very loudly "YES! Longer cables!"
I spoke with our operations manager and he feels a 36" cable would work also.
(any thought on ever selling a ePMP like Force110 SM/Reflector combo mount. It's pretty spiffy looking) If total performance was better then a SM + RCL1 then it'd be a nice item.