I lean towards what jimwatt said here. Make it an option to order with varying lengths of cable. I know I have more than enough cable lying around that I didn’t have to make any. I was happy enough with the included pigtail, but if 1 or 3 m of cable is included I wouldn’t complain either.
Adding a lot of this stuff gets a little pricey. Off the top of my head:
$50 - 35cm reflector (with plastic carrying case)
$15 - cone to increase SNR by ~5
The loss on the cable is unimportant as the LNB has a high output level . Its rather like an tv antenna with mast amplifier and its receive only one way. Expensive cable is a waste of money although if shipping it obviously weight is important.
Fine if you have the tools, when I checked, the crimping tool cost does not justify buying one, its much easier to buy the length of cable you need with proper crimped ends.
When I had a dish put in, the guys struggles with terminal tool, they normally do the fittings at the depot as the length is written up, in my case, being a 1 floor flat, makes for estimation hard and it took them 4 goes, twice at each end because the company would only buy cheap crimps, they often had to do them twice just to get the fitting crimped on.
If you are doing this as part of a living, then investing in a crimping tool is reasonable suggestion but not all hobbyists and makers carry such specialist tools nor have any reason to.
I understand what you are saying but you can get a compression tool, stripper, and 20 ends for $15. The hardest part is getting the end pushed over the dielectric. It’s a very tight fit, which is good since they are suppose to be waterproof.If you only need one cable it’s not worth it. But if you use coax as a hobby it is worth it. This also makes for a cheap way to repair cables.
Not here, we are talking an average of £45 for a tool, something that I can not justify the purchase cost of, then you have the bits for it that have to be bought in bags of 100’s and 1,000’s so that again adds another £40 to $50 on the price, so before long, to put two ends on a length of coax, were talking nearly £100 and the cost of a ready crimped cable… £3.95…
You see the dilema, if you were an installer, then fair enough, you can justify the purchase. Buying tools because you need it is the worst way to buy tools.
IMHO try looking at a few videos of machinists and when they talk about their tools in their shop, they all pretty much have to JUSTIFY buying the item because they buy quality, no use buying a $20 tool that will not last the use when a $200 tool of quality is made and will literally last 20 years.
You have to be able to justify the purchase by how many times you will be using the item and the cost of the item and the lifetime of the item.
This is why you see some workshops with lots of fantastic looking tools but all are sh*te compared to someone who has followed a basic shop justify use and quality purchases, those guys who have few tools have quality tools.
You don’t need to crimp F connectors - the common sort of twist on ones available cheap work fine. (I own and use all the crimp and compression tools but still fit twist one ones as appropriate)
BUT you must get good ones, with the correct size thread for the cable.
What is worth getting is some self amalgamating pvc tape to protect the plug and connection against water ingress.