RG6 Cable is a 75 ohm cable and is generally used in residential settings for UHF/VHF off air antenna, cable & satellite TV signal feed lines.
The transmitter you have - like most CB, Amateur, etc. radios ant associated antennas have 50 ohm outputs and outputs. This is for a reason. Ohm's law says Maximum Power Transfer occurs when Resistance In equals Resistance Out. In order to achieve this, all the components must have matching (or close to it) resistance values. Inserting a 75 Ohm cable in a "balanced" 50 Ohm circuit can cause a mismatch or high SWR. There are ways around this - but it's too deep for here.
Your best bet would be to either try the RG6 and adjust the antenna for lowest SWR, or if unable to get it down to an acceptable value (less than 2:1 is the worst I'd accept - but 1.5:1 is significantly better), purchase a high quality 50 Ohm coaxial cable assembly instead. Good luck!
If you've got a decent SWR, then there's no danger of damaging the transmitter finals. Many times, ham radio ops will use surplus "hardline" coax from cable tv companies because it is cheap (free). This hardline is also 75 ohms but has very low loss. Most of the time, coaxial type cables are used for VHF, UHF and higher frequencies. Hard line has very low loss characteristics.The down side is attaching connectors to the cable that will mate with our radio's antenna connectors. It can be done, but is not very pretty or inexpensive.
I use 450 Ohm "ladder line" (looks like the old TV "twin lead" antenna wire) from my HF (under 30Mhz) ham radio to my antenna. This wire is desirable because it has very low loss on HF frequencies - far less than the same length of premium RG8 cable (50Ohms). I have the RG8 for my VHF antenna because it has less loss on VHF than the ladder line. Good luck!If you've got a decent SWR, then there's no danger of damaging the transmitter finals. Many times, ham radio ops will use surplus "hardline" coax from cable tv companies because it is cheap (free). This hardline is also 75 ohms but has very low loss. Most of the time, coaxial type cables are used for VHF, UHF and higher frequencies. Hard line has very low loss characteristics.The down side is attaching connectors to the cable that will mate with our radio's antenna connectors. It can be done, but is not very pretty or inexpensive. I use 450 Ohm "ladder line" (looks like the old TV "twin lead" antenna wire) from my HF (under 30Mhz) ham radio to my antenna. This wire is desirable because it has very low loss on HF frequencies - far less than the same length of premium RG8 cable (50Ohms). I have the RG8 for my VHF antenna because it has less loss on VHF than the ladder line. Good luck!
Answers & Comments
RG6 Cable is a 75 ohm cable and is generally used in residential settings for UHF/VHF off air antenna, cable & satellite TV signal feed lines.
The transmitter you have - like most CB, Amateur, etc. radios ant associated antennas have 50 ohm outputs and outputs. This is for a reason. Ohm's law says Maximum Power Transfer occurs when Resistance In equals Resistance Out. In order to achieve this, all the components must have matching (or close to it) resistance values. Inserting a 75 Ohm cable in a "balanced" 50 Ohm circuit can cause a mismatch or high SWR. There are ways around this - but it's too deep for here.
Your best bet would be to either try the RG6 and adjust the antenna for lowest SWR, or if unable to get it down to an acceptable value (less than 2:1 is the worst I'd accept - but 1.5:1 is significantly better), purchase a high quality 50 Ohm coaxial cable assembly instead. Good luck!
If you've got a decent SWR, then there's no danger of damaging the transmitter finals. Many times, ham radio ops will use surplus "hardline" coax from cable tv companies because it is cheap (free). This hardline is also 75 ohms but has very low loss. Most of the time, coaxial type cables are used for VHF, UHF and higher frequencies. Hard line has very low loss characteristics.The down side is attaching connectors to the cable that will mate with our radio's antenna connectors. It can be done, but is not very pretty or inexpensive.
I use 450 Ohm "ladder line" (looks like the old TV "twin lead" antenna wire) from my HF (under 30Mhz) ham radio to my antenna. This wire is desirable because it has very low loss on HF frequencies - far less than the same length of premium RG8 cable (50Ohms). I have the RG8 for my VHF antenna because it has less loss on VHF than the ladder line. Good luck!