So, if you’re doing a project with a run of less than 100 feet, purchasing an RF Optix doesn't make too much sense.īut for cable runs above 150 feet, the benefits of RFoF are undeniable. It allows anyone with a wireless microphone to distribute RF over fiber as long as they want, with negligible financial and skill barriers to entry.Ī basic single channel kit is approximately $1K for receiver, transmitter, and 100 meters of indoor rated singlemode 1310nm cable (that number varies considerably, depending on options, by the way). The discrepancy between the ubiquity and economy of fiber optic cable and the seemingly alien and expensive technology used in traditional RFoF is why we designed the RF Optix system. Even though fiber optic cable itself is cheap and capable of sending signal many kilometers without loss, the devices needed to accomplish the simple RFoF conversion were mind-bogglingly expensive - a distributed RFoF installation might land near six or seven figures. Up until recently, RFoF systems existed only as expensive broadcast rigs or in clunky technology adapted from IT. Fiber cable is the flat line at the bottom. Here’s a comparison of how many dB RG8X, LMR-400, and 1310nm singlemode fiber lose over distance. In an RFoF system, RF signal picked up by the antenna is converted into light and sent down cheap, readily available fiber optic cable - which loses almost no signal whatsoever - and converted back into RF on the other side. Wait a second, there is: it’s called RF over fiber optic conversion. If only… if only there was another way to send RF signal from one distant place to another through a cable of some sort. LMR-400 is pretty much financially out of reach to anyone but systems integration firms bidding on someone else's project. Yikes.įor long coax cable runs, you’re damned if you do, damned if you don’t RG8X makes you struggle with gain structure and amplifier logistics. At about $6 a foot, 200 feet rings in at $1,200. With amplification you can stretch plenum LMR-400 500’ or more (any further mention of "LMR-400" refers to plenum rated, non-plenum is slightly less expensive). Plenum rated LMR-400 gives up less than 0.8 dB over 25 feet. High grade, low loss coax is the traditional solution for runs over 150 feet. High powered amps and amps with trim controls aren’t cheap, either. However, the more amplifier stages, or the higher the gain of a single amplifier, the more noise introduced into the system. There is no hard and fast rule for how far you can stretch RG8X with in-line amplification. Runs over 200 feet without amplification are only a dim possibility. The signal arriving at the receiver from anything longer than 100 feet of RG8X is probably going to cause trouble. The longer the coax run, the more loss and the more expensive it gets. It’s cheap, somewhat durable, and gives no more than 8 dB of loss, depending on frequency. But once you get above 100 feet, things get tricky. If you remote an antenna less than 75 feet, low loss RG8X can’t be beat.
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