What are Coaxial Cables?
Coaxial cables, which are in the class of weak current cables, are a special type of cable used to carry radio frequencies. To put it more clearly, these coaxial cables are used to carry very high frequency currents such as UHF or VHF, analog signals at very high frequencies, and considering that the coaxial cable changes the direction of the current millions of times per second, it is a very efficient cable type to use. There are many different types of coaxial cable.
Coaxial Cable Structure
In the innermost part of the coaxial cables, which consist of four materials inside each other as a physical structure, there is a cable line that carries the signal that we call the live line consisting of copper or other conductors, and there is an insulator surrounding this line.
In general, polyethylene (PE “polyethylene material has a very high electrical insulation, so external insulators made from this polyethylene material are used in areas with an average ambient temperature of -55 to +85 Cº.
are used”) or Teflon (PTFE) around this insulating material, there is a braid of conductors, also called thin foil, and this existing braid is grounded. There is a protective sheath on the outermost part of the cable, which is the outer sheath, which provides the protection of the cable, and a material such as PVC is generally used. Here, at ambient temperature where the external insulators made with PVC are between -40 and +80 Cº
Coaxial Cable Features and Types
Coaxial cables are divided into types according to the diameters of the cables. Here, the diameter of the coaxial cable is a factor that directly affects the signal propagation distance and impedance. In the light of this information, coaxial cables are divided into two groups as thick coaxial known as Thick Coax and thin coax known as Thin Coax.
Thick Coaxial ‘Thick Coax’ Cables
Thick coaxial cables, approximately 1 cm thick, are a type of cable used in ethernet network systems. Because of the yellow sheath of thick coaxial cables, they are also called “Yellow Ethernet”, commonly called yellow ethernet, and are known as such.
Thick coaxial cables in IEEE standards, which are described as 10Base5 Ethernet, can transfer data at 10 Mbps with these features. Base in the name 10Base5 indicates that the cable is used for baseband data transfer. The number 5 after Base indicates that the thick coaxial cable can transfer data up to 500 m in a healthy and high quality way. It is covered with an extra protective outer plastic layer to protect the inner conductor of thick coaxial cables from external humidity.
