When looking for a cable to connect an antenna, you need to consider different parameters:
- The cable loss at 868MHz (if corresponding)
- The connector type
In this post I’ve tried to list some of the mostly used cable and connectors for connecting LoRaWan antennas.
Cable loss & mechanical characteristics
There are a lot of different cables. I’ve tried from different source to identify the 50 Ohm one and the main interesting characteristics like the loss per meter and diameter. It helps to get a choice. The loss depends on frequency so I did my best to find information at 868Mhz and tried to interpolated the loss when I did not had the value at the right frequency. Feel free to comment if you know website with good reference on some of these to improve the documentation. Particularly on the Rigid / Semi-Rigid / Flexible status. Eventually Indoor/Outdoor usage.
| Type of cable | LoSS / M | diameteR | Style | Connector | Price Indication |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| LMR-600 | ~0,08 dBm | 15 mm | SMA TypeN | 10€ / m | |
| LMR-400 | ~0,10 dBm | 10 mm | SMA TypeN | 5€ / m | |
| HDF-400 | ~0.13 dBm | 10 mm | Semi-Rigid | SMA TypeN | 2€ / m |
| LMR-300 | ~0,15 dBm | 8 mm | SMA TypeN | 3€ / m | |
| RG-401 | ~0,18 dBm | 6,4 mm | Semi-Rigid | SMA | 16€ / m |
| LMR-240 | ~0.24 dBm | 6 mm | SMA TypeN | 2€ / m | |
| RG-142 | ~0,25 dBm | 5 mm | Flexible | SMA TypeN | 10€-15€ /m |
| RG-402 | ~0,25 dBm | 3,6 mm | Semi-Rigid | SMA | 10€-15€ / m |
| RG-213/214 | ~0.26 dBm | 10 mm | SMA TypeN | 7€ / m | |
| RG-8X | ~0.42 dBm | 6,4 mm | Flexible | SMA TypeN | 1€-2€ / m |
| RG-405 | ~0,45 dBm | 2,1 mm | Semi-Rigid | SMA | 1€-2€ /m |
| RG-58 | ~0,50 dBm | 5 mm | Flexible | SMA TypeN | 0,75€ / m |
| HDF-200 | ~0,59 dBm | 5 mm | SMA TypeN | 2€ – 3€ /m | |
| RG-178 | ~1,00 dBm | 2 mm | Flexible | SMA TypeN | 3€ / m |
| RG-174 | ~1,00 dBm | 2,5 mm | Flexible | SMA TypeN | 1€ / m |
Connectors
There are different type of connector in use for antennas and gateways. Usually, the gateways and indoor antennas use SMA connectors when outdoor antennas use Type-N connector.
The SMA / RP-SMA family is a bit a mess with 4 different connectors:
For the Type N we also have Male and Female
With a such number of different connector in use, the number of adaptator is really large. According to my experience, even if you try to have them all in stock, you will always missed thee one you need !