Re: pigtail questions
Jeff Liebermann <[email protected]>
| Newsgroups | gmane.network.wireless.bay-area |
|---|---|
| Message-ID | <[email protected]> |
On Thu, May 13, 2004 at 10:18:15AM -0700, Tobin Fricke wrote: > I'm looking for a couple pigtails (ORiNOCO to N), and I am wondering > whether the info at http://www.seattlewireless.net/index.cgi/PigTail is > still current -- it seems kind of funny that a short length of cable can > cost nearly as much as the network card. (-: Well, I also decided that it was too expensive and decided to make my own. I bought the connectors and crimping tools from Electro-Comm: http://www.ecommwireless.com $5 for the N male and $6 for the Orinoco connector. About $35/ea for 3 crimping tools. I scrounged the LMR-100 and shrink tube. So far, we have about $12 in parts, ignoring the crimp tools. However, what killed me was the time it took to make a single pigtail. I didn't buy a cable stripper and had to do the cable prep with a pocket knife and diagonal cutters. Figure on about 30-45 minutes each (including testing) and ruining a few connectors before announcing success. Crimped connectors and nice, but you don't get a 2nd chance if you mess up the crimp. My guess is that I would have been better off buying instead of building my own. Lately, I've been buying from: http://www.fab-corp.com/K1.htm $19 for a 12" Orinoco cable. > When connecting an antenna to the orinoco card, is it okay to use > "pigtail" (say, LMR100A) for the whole length, or should a short pigtail > be used to convert to some other kind of cable? No. LMR-100 is good coax for short pigtails, but not long runs. LMR-100 is about 19dB/100ft or 0.19dB/ft. 3dB is half your power so 15.7ft of LMR-100 will eat half your power. Actually it's a bit worse than that as each connector pair will eat an additional 0.5dB. The whole idea behind a pigail is to provide a flexible connection to your LAN card so that the big, fat, heavy, and low loss coax cable to the antenna, doesn't break off the connector on the wireless LAN card. > I see all of these 12" > pigtails offered -- does that mean these people have the antenna within > 12" of the radio adapter? I think I'm planning to get a 60" pigtail, > since that seems to be a convenient length. No. Antenna runs should be made with LMR-400 or LMR-600. LMR-400 is 6.8dB/100ft or 0.068dB/ft. Much less attenuation than LMR-100. -- # Jeff Liebermann Liebermann Design 150 Felker St #D Santa Cruz CA 95060 # 831.336.2558 voice 831.421.6491 digital_pager AE6KS # [email protected] http://www.LearnByDestroying.com _______________________________________________ BAWUG's general wireless chat mailing list [unsubscribe] http://lists.bawug.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless