what equipment do I need

Wayne Billings

Active SatelliteGuys Member
Original poster
May 28, 2019
21
1
Plaquemine, La.
I have a 5th wheel with dish network service. I had a winegard carryout that failed on me so I went out and bought a winegard pathfinder 2. We are going on our yearly camping trip at degray lake in Arkansas and we have the same site we always camp on. In the past with the carryout we would have to go out more than 200 feet from the camper to get clear view and have done this on multiple occasions. The winegard customer support people told me that 100 foot is the max that I will be able to run rg6 and to use solid copper center conductor. Is there any equipment that will help me to be able to run the 200+ feet of cable to use my dish network system. Will quad shieding help. Do I need some other rg coax. Can a booster of some kind help. I have a roku smart tv, 211z & 211k receiver, pathfinder 2 dish. everything is the same equipment that I have been using for the past 5 years. Is the old carryout a better system than the pathfinder 2. Thanks for any input.
 
I have a 5th wheel with dish network service. I had a winegard carryout that failed on me so I went out and bought a winegard pathfinder 2. We are going on our yearly camping trip at degray lake in Arkansas and we have the same site we always camp on. In the past with the carryout we would have to go out more than 200 feet from the camper to get clear view and have done this on multiple occasions. The winegard customer support people told me that 100 foot is the max that I will be able to run rg6 and to use solid copper center conductor. Is there any equipment that will help me to be able to run the 200+ feet of cable to use my dish network system. Will quad shieding help. Do I need some other rg coax. Can a booster of some kind help. I have a roku smart tv, 211z & 211k receiver, pathfinder 2 dish. everything is the same equipment that I have been using for the past 5 years. Is the old carryout a better system than the pathfinder 2. Thanks for any input.
Spend the money on RG11. It'll be worth it
 
I agree with the RG-11 recommendation. Keep in mind Winegard is recommending the maximum distance they can be sure the X2 will operate reliably. Longer distances with good quality coax are likely to work as well, but there are enough variables that they will not say so. The max coax distance for my 1000.4 is listed at 200 ft for instance, but I once tested it with a 1000 ft reel of RG-6. There was significant signal loss, but the signals were borderline in the green and the reception was stable. I suspect it wouldn't have taken much rain cloud cover to knock it out though. The point is that your X2 may work ok at 200 ft with RG-6, but the RG-11 should work better. If it's convenient to do so, you might want to test with your existing RG-6 first to see if the performance is acceptable before prying open your wallet for the RG-11.
 
Now is another question. There are big price differences from one rg11 coax. What do I look at when choosing what to use. some are expensive and some are ridiculously expensive. What do I look for to get a reasonably priced rg11 coax... I know I need solid copper and not copper/clad steel coax but besides that is there anything else that I should pay attention to when selecting a quality coax. (shielding?)
 
Now is another question. There are big price differences from one rg11 coax. What do I look at when choosing what to use. some are expensive and some are ridiculously expensive. What do I look for to get a reasonably priced rg11 coax... I know I need solid copper and not copper/clad steel coax but besides that is there anything else that I should pay attention to when selecting a quality coax. (shielding?)
You don't need Quad, for one thing. There's a cost savings right there
 
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Looked there but wanted to buy a 500 ft. spool and cant seem to find but will look again. Thanks to everyone that gave a helping hand.. Somewhere I read that I need to have rg6 at both ends of the rg11. Is there anything to that? Thanks again for all input.
 
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Sometimes a short RG-6 pigtail is added on one or both ends of the RG-11 for more flexibility at the connections. There's no technical reason for doing it, and the extra fittings needed actually degrade the signal level. On some tight RG-11 installations, I've used a 90 degree adapter at the connection point for a better cable angle. That only adds one additional connection point instead of two for a pigtail.
 
Unless it’s a signaling issue back to the path finder Dish, RG6 should work fine at 200 feet

There is no issue on the signal, but rather the issue becomes voltage drop where especially on legacy LNB’s the system cannot produce 18 volts to switch polarities. Also sending switch commands back up the line up switch satellites becomes an issue.

Quad shield actually does help due to the voltage drop.

I have run hundreds of feet of RG6 with no issues.

IMHO I would run RG6 first, see if it works before you spend $100/$150 on RG11

The only difference in the signal is RG11 is half the loss of RG 6, which is 6 DB
 
Back when we were outfitting for Dish and HughesNet, we needed dual coax cable. It was pretty easy to get 500' spool of dual. We carried two 100's two 50's , and two 25's. Sold some to neighbors.

We used the shortest that would reach and joined only when necessary. Usually one of the dishes didn't need extra distance for visibility.

As we dropped HughesNet and then went to the Hopper 3, we just split the dual coax, and had lots of spares.
 
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Back when we were outfitting for Dish and HughesNet, we needed dual coax cable. It was pretty easy to get 500' spool of dual. We carried two 100's two 50's , and two 25's. Sold some to neighbors.

We used the shortest that would reach and joined only when necessary. Usually one of the dishes didn't need extra distance for visibility.

As we dropped HughesNet and then went to the Hopper 3, we just split the dual coax, and had lots of spares.
I carry a similar coax assortment to cover most situations with the fewest connections. In Wayne's case of a semi-permanent static installation that's pushing the workable length limits, a contiguous run would seem to be the best option.
 
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