A customer came to us asking if they could put their antenna 1600 feet from their television. It seems they live down in a valley and want to put the antenna up at the top of the highest hill. So, what are the options?
Trying to use amplifiers
The first thing you’ll want to do is amplify that antenna signal at the point of reception. You will lose about 110dB of signal over a run that long if you do it all with RG6. You’ll need a strong amplifier to overcome as much of that as possible. In most cases I’d recommend a preamplifier, but the strongest ones tend to only be about 20dB. That’s a drop in the bucket compared to what you’ll lose. You can add a 30dB launch amplifier instead, but those tend to add more noise than a quality preamp. So that extra amplification may not help you since it raises the noise floor.
You’ll have to power any amplifier you use, and that can be done using solar panels. A solar station like this one will give you all the power you need. The issue is that you’ll need several of them. You’ll likely get about 300 feet before the gain from that amplifier is exhausted. Then, you’ll need another amplifier, and another, to get you all the way down.
Or, you could use different cable
Using RG11 cable is definitely an option here. I don’t generally advocate using RG11 cable because most people don’t have cable runs long enough for it to make a difference. But, over a run that long, the loss on RG11 is only about 75dB. That means that you’ll need only three amplifiers instead of five to overcome all that loss. You’ll be introducing less loss into the line, and that’s good too.
There’s a specific cable called LMR600-75 which has the lowest loss characteristic of all 75 ohm cable. The only cables with less loss have a 50-ohm impedance. You can convert from 50 ohm to 75 ohm and back, but since you lose something in the translation, you have to decide if it’s worth it. You’ll only lose about 40dB using LMR600-75, and that means you could potentially use one amplifier at the antenna site and one amplifier within 100 feet of the television and get the results you want. This cable is expensive though, and a 1,600-foot length will run you about — no kidding — $8,000. So it’s something you really have to consider carefully.
Are there other options?
If you’re willing to put a lot of equipment up there, you could potentially use something like a pair of Ubiquiti AirFiber X devices to send all the signals over that distance. This isn’t really what they’re designed for, but looking at the specs it could work. You’ll need power up there, more power than you would need for an amplifier. But I think if you’re willing to put in the money it could work.
If you want to discuss options for extremely long runs, call the experts at Solid Signal! We have an enterprise team ready to answer all your questions. We’ll design a custom solution just for you!
