Hi Andre!
Good point, a preamp is to cancel out the cable losses, anymore and you are just boosting the background noise and not improving the reception. So if your cable is very short there is not point in using a preamp.
I have never used a preamp when working satellites. If your station - radio(s), antenna(s), and feedline - are good enough, you may not need to invest in preamps.
I even dare to say that you can have more succes using a portable setup then a fixed instalation with preamps and elevation rotors because you can adjust polarisation, theoreticly this can give a gain upto 30 dB, in practice somewhere between 3 and 9 dB.
Very true! I'm working with portable setups, even from my back yard like I showed in the videos I posted earlier today, and do well without preamps. I use short RG58 coax runs - 10 feet (3m) from antenna to radio or diplexer, and 3 feet (1m) from diplexer to radios if I am working SSB/CW. Modifying K4FEG's statement to "YOU *MAY* NEED A PREAMP" would be more accurate.
73!
Patrick WD9EWK/VA7EWK http://www.wd9ewk.net/