Excess radar cable?

[AiniA]

I am in the process of installing a B&G 4G radar. It comes with a very long cable (10 m?) which is much more than I need. The instructions recommend not shortening the cable. Will I get interference if I roll up the cable and tie it will cable ties?

[steve77]

I also have the B&G radar.

As I recall, that cable has a foil shield, and I don't think you will have any problems with interference just coiling it and ty-rapping it. I would recommend you do just that and try it. If you get interference, then call the B&G tech support and ask about cutting the cable.

Best of luck.

Steve

[smac999]

it's a bare power cable and a cat 5 network cable.

if you are able to crimp rj 45's. then cut it off any length and re splice.

[CassidyNZ]

Or you could lay it with long loops rather than a coil?

Mine isn’t B&G but my cable was a couple of metres too short, had to lengthen it with an inserted piece that I scored from an electronics shop. Works just fine.

[Reefmagnet]

Shortening the cable is no problem if you have the means and know-how. I didn't shorten mine and just bundled up the excess and hid it behind a convenient cabinet. Doesn't worry it at all.

[mikereed100]

I called Simrad tech support a while back asking about cutting the cable to make it easier to drop the mast. They could not recommend cutting it but "that said" told me that many people had done so without issue.



I ended up leaving it, but ended up cutting the cable on the Raymarine radar on my trawler, shortening it by 9 meters. It was a pain as there are a lot of wires, including coax, but I just crimped them back together and wrapped the whole mess in tinfoil. I don't notice any difference in performance.

[Bycrick]

The radar cable has three wires for power/power control; these can be shortened with no problem because they’re terminated on a clamp-down plug into the interface box. The other wire is an RJ45 Ethernet wire. That can also be cut, but you’ll need to crimp on a new connector.

The RJ45 has 8 wires. Tiny. Color code is sometimes hard to see. Getting them all into the connector in the right order takes some practice. So buy some extra connectors. You can try to fudge this by stripping the jacket back enough to put the wires in one-at-a-time, but if you do that then the connector won’t crimp to the jacket and you have no strain relief. You’ll also need the RJ45 crimping tool. Not expensive, but you’ll probably never use it again.

The simplest compromise is to strip back the outer jacket, cut off the power wires to the required length, then coil up the excess Ethernet wire. You could always get somebody who has the tools to shorten it later.