auburnaviator

Well Known Member
How much total length of RG400 (or other similar coax that you used on your build) did you guys use? Looking to make a wire purchase soon.

Thanks,
Zach
 
I found a relatively inexpensive vendor of "the good stuff" on Bay. I think he was based in Maryland. I've purchased from him twice over the years. Cable appears to be mil spec, not Chinese counterfeit goods.

That said, unless you have some use for leftovers and are content to over-estimate your needs, I'd try using weed eater string or similar to mock up my cable runs in place in the airframe and get a material total. Add 5% for error, and a few more feet for mis-cut ends during the soldering/crimping process. I don't recall the total in my -10, but since these planes are custom-appointed, it won't generalize anyway. I have runs for ELT, XPDR, ADS-B, two comm antennas and a VOR antenna with coaxial balun, 2 GPS pucks, all likely located in areas where you would not choose to put yours. For some of these, the cheaper RG-58 or RG-8X would work as well, others are high enough in freq that the lower loss 400 cable is definitely indicated.

With shipping charges and delays in progress, it's cheaper to buy 10' more than you need than it is to buy 1 inch less, the first time...
 
I usually say 50’ is not enough, 100’ will be too much :).

Also varies a good amount based on how many total antenna runs you’ll have. Coms, transponder, nav, gps (several?), etc..
 
I bought 50' for my 7A. Com is between the seats. ADSB & XPonder are near the gear towers. Very little extra.
 
Don’t forget to add in extra for some Garmin gps navigators which have a specified minimum length of coax (or other loss).
 
I got about 100ft and used most of it (but I have more antennas than most, including 2 TAS antennas that take 4 cables each).