How does cable signal loss affect performance?
The longer a cable is, the more signal loss you have as it flows through the cable. This effect becomes more pronounced as the frequency you’re using goes higher. For instance… If you had 50′ of cable, there would be more loss while operating at 900 MHz than there would be at say, 40 MHz. Typically losses for a cable are listed at different frequencies, based on a 100′ length. As an example… A 100′ piece of LMR400 has a loss of 1.5 dB at 150 MHz and a loss of 4.0 dB at 1000 MHz. As far as real world performance is concerned, you really aren’t going to start noticing a difference until it’s at least 2 dB and higher.
