[time-nuts] looking at creative ways to route GPS signals through a home to a Thunderbolt

[brooke at pacific.net]

Hi Scott

Most GPS antennas have some amount of gain and that varies from none to
over 50 dB, with about 20 to 30 dB the most common.  The idea is for the
system noise figure to be established by the antenna and not the coax loss
getting to the receiver.

To have gain requires DC power to the antenna.  It turns out that most GPS
antennas run fine on 3 to 5 Volts.  For example the Motorola Timing
antenna (white inverted ice cream cone)is specified to run over that
voltage range.

So you're option C can work if you properly manage the RF and DC aspects. 
If the DC aspects are not handled properly you risk smoking the antenna.

One of the potential problems is there may already be DC or AC on the CATV
coax that's not compatible with the GPS antenna DC requirements.  Do you
have a diagram of the CATV system?

Have Fun,

Brooke Clarke

> I have a Thunderbolt (thanks TAPR!) located in a second floor room of my
> house which
> has only an obstructed view of the sky.  There's no easy way to get to
> that room, short
> of putting an antenna on the roof and punching a hole in the wall to get
> inside.  For some reason,
> my wife takes a dim view of that plan.
>
> Plan B would be to mount the antenna near an attic vent, run the cabling
> inside, go through the
> attic and drill down into one of the inner walls to terminate in an
> outlet box of some sort.
>
> So the dedicated time-nuts may laugh at plan C.  This is to mount an
> antenna on roof near the garage
> and connect to the RG6 CATV run from the garage to this room.  I'd guess
> it's about 60-70ft of RG6.
> Can RG6 pass the 1.5Ghz signal successfully?  Is the Thunderbolt
> sensitive enough to be used this way?
> Has anyone tried this?
>
> Scott
>
>
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