Overview
How to choose antenna extension cables without losing most of your RF power.
Key points
- Use the shortest cable possible.
- Choose low-loss coax for long cable runs.
- Avoid cheap unknown cables for 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz.
- Calculate cable loss before moving the antenna far away.
Practical advice
RF cable choice can strongly affect real range. At 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz, even short poor-quality cables can lose significant power.
Common mistakes
Common mistakes include using long thin coax, adding too many adapters, confusing SMA and RP-SMA, and ignoring cable loss in the link budget.