March 5 2024 – splitter

When comparing different DAB (or FM a.o.) receiving devices it’s helpful to connect them all to the same antenna at the same time making it easy to switch between devices.
It did so when testing different SDR devices on DAB.
I had a few splitters lying about and after some comparing the Keliiyo 4-way coaxial splitter produced the best results, i.e. had the least loss numbers.
So I decided to compare the CNR numbers with the antennas hooked up directly to my RSPdx and hooked up via the splitter. Measurements were done on very strong local muxes to avoid too much fluctuations.
The results were rather surprising showing a lot less loss than expected when using this splitter.
Make sure you have a power pass splitter when using a LNA (with BIAS-T).
What to do when there’s great tropo? Using a splitter will be ok, but then again I’d like to squeeze every drop of DX out of a lift … so I will then hook up my antennas to the device in use without a splitter.

Keliiyo in numbers
Keliiyo splitter
Kaliiyo splitter set-up