Tag: RF400

5G external antennas for 5G access – some considerations

Written by EAD Admin on 29th September 2026. Posted in News.

5G external antennas are necessary when your 5G router does not receive sufficient signal where it is installed. If you are not able relocate your router to a position where it can receive sufficient signal, then you will probably need an external antenna.

An external antenna will typically attach via one, two or four coaxial cables to antenna connectors on your router. Most 5G routers* have connectors for attaching external antennas, the most common connector for this is SMA.

So, if the location where you want to install your 5G has insufficient signal for a stable connection, apart from the common parameters like gain and directionality, what are some key considerations for using an external antenna?

Distance from the router and cable selection – is there a location close to the 5G router with a better or good 5G signal? The word close is doing some heavy lifting as it will depend on what kind of low loss cable you can use to connect up the antenna. A 400 type cable like LMR400 or RF400 will typically facilitate the external antenna being installed up to 25 to 30 metres from the router. 400 type cable is approximately 10.3mm in diameter and some find it a little heavy and cumbersome, but it offers excellent RF performance. Using 240 type cable such as RF240 low loss coax will allow an antenna up to 15 metres from the router. 240 cable is 6.2mm diameter and is relatively light and flexible. Coaxial cables with a small diameter typically have inferior RF properties and cables runs with these may only achieve 5m before the attenuation/loss across the cable negates any benefit of using an external antenna. Choosing your low loss cable effectively can determine how far away from router you can install your antenna.
Mounting method – the type of antenna you choose often reflects the mounting method available to install the antenna. Wall-mount, pole-mount, magnetic mount, adhesive mount, through-hole permanent enclosure mount are some of the options. Each option can have some advantages and disadvantages. Wall and pole mount antennas are usually a little larger with better RF performance whereas through-hole mount antennas are typically lower profile and more discreet for environments where deliberate damage is possible. For 5G access, marrying a 5G external wall or pole mount antenna with a 10M RF240 or 20M RF400 cable is quite common as the antenna generally sits a good distance away from the router.
Waterproofing / Outdoor suitable antennas – If you are installing an external antenna outdoors and subject to the weather, it is worth considering whether the antenna you are selecting is truly built for long term outdoor deployment. Some budget antennas are clearly not built to handle a few months of continuous outdoor deployment. You can check specifications to see if the antenna specification states IP66 or IP67 ingress protection and if the antenna radome is UV resistant. Also, you can use common sense when looking at a potential antenna choices to assess the quality of the materials used and how the antenna is designed. Sometimes it is fairly obvious that an external antenna is not going to last long when the rain is hammering down.
Connector type and how many – before choosing a 5G external antenna and low loss cable(s), double check the antenna connectors on your router. Depending on the type of router, you might need to connect up to four antenna ports for maximum performance. A single port, 2 port MIMO or 4 port MIMO might be required to match the number of antenna ports to the router. In addition, the physical connector on the router needs to be confirmed. As mentioned previously, the most common option is SMA, but others such as TNC or N-type connectors are possible.

For more information or assistance with selecting the correct 5G external antennas for you application, talk to EAD. You can e-mail us at sales@ead-ltd.com.

*please note that some 5G routers do not have external antenna connectors

Using 5G antennas with low loss cables – how to minimize losses?

Written by EAD Admin on 8th September 2026. Posted in News.

When installing a 5G (or 4G) outdoor antenna often the antenna might have an integral 5M or 10M cable or alternatively you might need to use low loss coaxial cables in longer runs to connect the antenna to the router. Whichever option you are using, analysing the cable type and the length of the cable to ensure you are introducing too much loss into the system is important.

We often see that 5G and 4G outdoor antennas with integral 5M cables use lower quality coaxial cable that exhibit losses per metre far in excess of better quality cables. In some cases, the coaxial cable used on the antenna might almost negate what the antenna can deliver in gain. For example, an outdoor antenna with 3 dBi gain at 900 MHz that uses a typical 5M RG58 cable will have 2.1 dB to 2.6 dB loss across the cable run, leaving an effective gain of 0.4 to 0.9 dB. Using a 10M integral RG58 cable would mean that the cable losses would exceed the antenna gain in this instance.

At higher frequencies such as 1800 MHz, the losses across RG58 are much greater than at 900 MHz meaning that it is also good to know which exact bands your 5G / 4G system is running on so you can better calculate the effectiveness of your antenna installation.

Using a RF240 low loss cable over 5M, the loss across the cable is approximately 1.25 dB and over 10M 2.5 dB. RF240 is 1mm larger in diameter than RG58, but the electrical properties are far superior especially for longer cable runs or higher frequencies. Therefore, it might worth considering an antenna with a coaxial connector termination (check our FGO-Max as an example) and using a hjgher grade extension cable to maximise the effective gain in the system.

Furthermore, for even longer coaxial cable runs, you could deploy 400 type cable. This is typically 10.2mm in diameter, but the loss per metre specifications are very good. Particularly ideal for 15M, 20M and 25M cable runs, RF400 cables would exhibit approximately half the losses of RF240 at 900 MHz i.e. 0.66 dB for a 5M cable run. Therefore, at 15M you would need to factor in approximately a 2 dB loss at 900 MHz.

Another issue with integral cables on external antennas is what to do with excess cable? What do you do if you only need 3M or 7M cables, but the standard configurations for the antennas offer 5M or 10M cables? Excess cable in the installation means unnecessary loss (and also coiled excess cable looks very unsightly!). Using custom length low loss cables means using only the exact cable length you need thereby improving efficiency in the system.

Need further help with your 5G and 4G antenna installation and low loss coaxial cable selection? Talk to EAD. We will be happy to help you make the right selection.

Low loss RF coaxial cables – comparing your options

Written by EAD Admin on 8th November 2019. Posted in News.

This blog article entry considers the merits of choosing which of various low loss RF coaxial cables to use for IoT, LTE or LORA wireless applications where an external antenna is used to connect to router, gateway or terminal.

In this article, we will consider cables such as RG174, RG58, RF195, RF240 and RF400 as possible coaxial cable choices for your installation.

The first point to consider is that running extension or jumper cables between the antenna and the radio (router, modem, terminal, gateway, wireless device – for the sake of this article we’ll simply use the term radio) is that the cable will always introduce loss into the system. Whether you use very low loss, high quality coaxial cable or very thin and “lossy” cable, attenuation will be introduced between antenna and radio. A key area to focus on is to minimise the loss introduced by the cable in order to maximise the performance of the antenna. On longer cable runs it is very important to use low loss RF coaxial cables otherwise attenuation is too great for a functional wireless deployment.

Looking at RG174, it is a thin coax typically with a PVC sheath and can be used often for lower frequencies up to a very maximum of 2-3 metres. Most often it is used for what we call “pigtail” or adapter cables which a short cables that typically connect a cable to radio often to convert from one connector to another or if a connector presenting to the radio is too small to be fitted to a very low loss coax. (RF400 cables are 10.2mm diameter and as such connectors like MMCX, QMA, MCX cannot be fitted to RF400).

RG58 is a stranded coaxial cable about 5mm in diameter. It can be used for longer runs than RG174, however we typically recommend customers switch to RF195 which is also 5mm in diameter, but due to its solid copper core and superior insulation is lower loss than RG58.

RF195 is typically used in cable runs for 4G and cellular applications up to maximum cable run of 10M. Any more than 10M then the attenuation introduced by the cable into the system starts to affect the overall performance. The advantages of RF195 is that it is cost-effective, flexible and has good RF properties making it ideal for 5M extension cable requirements.

For longer runs that RF195 offers or for lower loss performance over 5 to 10M, then RF240 low loss coaxial cables are an ideal selection. RF240 is very similar to LMR240. With an overall sheath diameter of 6.1mm, it can be offer in a PVC all-purpose sheath or a LSZH (Low Smoke Zero Halogen) CPR Class Eca compliant sheath. RF240 could be used up to about 15M cable runs for 4G and cellular applications and probably shorter runs if using it for WiFi. Once again, RF240 is cost-effective, but it is also flexible and robust making it ideal in installations where cable routing might be a little tricky.

For even longer cable runs, we have RF400 with PVC sheath for multi-purpose applications and RF400 LSZH Eca cable. These two cables are very low loss and we supply cables runs up to 50 or 60M depending on the frequency used in the installation. Both RF400 low loss RF coaxial cables are approx. 10mm in diameter, offering a little bit of flexibility, but most key is excellent RF properties meaning that you can minimise attenuation from the antenna to radio in your system.

EAD is a UK-based vendor of antenna solutions from 100 MHz to 6 GHz and also custom-assemblies low loss coaxial cables to customer specifications. For more information, please visit our product pages at www.customcoax.co.uk or contact us for specific requirements or questions you may have.

CPR class Eca low loss coaxial cable assembles available

Written by EAD Admin on 7th November 2019. Posted in News.

EAD is pleased to introduce RF400 and RF240 Eca low loss coaxial cable assemblies. For coaxial cables requiring permanent installation into in-building applications, CPR compliance is now mandatory. CPR (Construction Products Regulation) legislation as it relates to coaxial cables addresses flammability properties of cables that are be installed inside buildings.

RF400 LSZH and RF240 LSHZ are both CPR classified as Eca and is manufactured in the European Union to high and consistent standards. At EAD, we cut the LSZH (Low Smoke Zero Halogen) cables to the required length and terminate with the customer-specified connectors.

For more details on the two Eca low loss cables visit our RF cables products page and for quotes or lead times, please contact us.

Low Loss RF coaxial cable assemblies RF240 and RF400

Written by EAD Admin on 30th October 2018. Posted in News.

Low Loss RF coaxial cable assemblies based on RF240 and RF400 low loss cable products are available from EAD.

You can download our RF240 and RF400 overview brochures here:

RF240 Low Loss coaxial cables

RF400 Low Loss coaxial cables

These low loss RF cables can be customer specified with the parameters of length and connector type configurable. Both cable types complement LTE, IoT, GNSS and UHF outdoor antenna installations. Typical products that marry with these cables are the LMO7270, FGO, and HIGAIN-RTK antennas.

Popular RF400 part numbers include RF400-SF-SM-10M and RF400-NM-SM-10M

For more information on EAD’s low loss RF coaxial cable assemblies, please contact EAD or your local distributor.

RF400 – Very low loss RF coaxial cable assemblies

Written by EAD Admin on 19th July 2017. Posted in RF400 Cables.

RF400 is a very low loss RF coaxial cable designed for longer cable runs and is comparable in performance to LMR400 or BWL400. RF400 is a high quality low loss cable manufactured in Europe.

We can supply customised RF400 cable runs with customer-specified connectors and cable lengths. Standard connectors supplied for RF400 include N-Male, N-Female, BNC-Male, TNC-Male, RP-TNC, SMA-Male, SMA-Female.

Common configurations include N-Male to SMA-Male to connect up omni-directional and directional antennas terminated in N-Female connectors where the radio modem has a SMA-Female connector.

For RF400 very low loss RF coaxial cable quotations and further information, please contact us. For customers in Europe, you can buy some 10M, 15M, 20M, 25M and 30M pre-terminated RF400 cables via the Connex Webshop. The individual cables can be purchased via the links below:

Buy 10M RF400 pre-terminated cable
Buy 15M RF400 pre-terminated cable
Buy 20M RF400 pre-terminated cable
Buy 25M RF400 pre-terminated cable
Buy 30M RF400 pre-terminated cable

For a smaller low loss coaxial cable for shorter cable runs, you could consider RF195 or RF240 low loss cables.