Hi, all.

I am finally making progress in terms of getting my new HF Predator
screw-driver-type antenna installed onto my RV travel trailer.  Hope to have
it done by this week-end. ... My question is this:

The person helping to install the antenna has already put Belden RG8X coax
on the antenna.  The coax run will be about 20 feet, going from the back of
the trailer to the inside where I'll have my Icom 718 HF rig.  We will have
the coax running in a PVC conduit which will run along the frame of the
trailer, and the coax will come up through a hole at an appropriate spot
inside the trailer.

Someone has suggested to me that I really ought to be using thicker coax for
this purpose, in order to minimize loss.  I do have a 100 foot chunk of RG8U
coax with a foam dialectric that I could get the needed coax from, but don't
want to go to all the trouble of re-doing the already-existing connections
on the antenna if it really won't make much difference.

The guy who installed the original coax on the antenna looked Belden RG8X up
in the ARRL antenna book, and found that it has .7 DB loss per 100 foot on
10 mhz, so any loss for a 20-foot run would seem negligible to me.

Am I ok here, or should I really consider the thicker RG8U stuff?

I know there are likely to be a variety of opinions on this one, and I
suppose I could always change coax runs later, but I want to try doing
things right the first time if possible.

Thanks as always for your very helpful advice.

73 from Tom Behler: KB8TYJ