TOP 5 TIPS: Cables and Connectors
Coaxial cable, or coax cable, is a type of electrical cable consisting of an inner conductor surrounded by a concentric conducting shield, with the two separated by a dielectric (insulating material); many coaxial cables also have a protective outer sheath or jacket. The term coaxial refers to the inner conductor and the outer shield sharing a geometric axis.
If you are finding that cables and connectors are getting damaged or broken during an installation, these are some of the problems that you and your installation team should be aware of:
- Issue 1: The installer pulled the cable through a channel and pulled so hard that they have pulled the connector off. We do perform QA tests on our products with a 1 to 3 kg ‘pull test’ so they must have pulled extremely hard to cause it to break.
- Issue 2: The installer pulled the cable through a hole or something similar, skimming/scratching/stripping the outer coax braid and damaging the cable.
- Issue 3: Pulling a coax cable can also distort the dielectric and change the impedance, reducing the performance of the antenna.
- Issue 4: Often customers kink the coax which does the same as the above – this point relates to the permittable bend radius of the cable.
- Issue 5: Connecting an SMA to RP-SMA can either, a) damage the connector on the router and/or the antenna or, b) result in a poor connection or no connection, severely impacting the performance of the system.
It is important that customers and installers are aware that they need to handle the coax cable with care. Although we ensure that the best quality coaxial cables and connectors are used, the incorrect implementation can render the antennas performance useless.
