Hi John,
I am a relative newby like you. First call was WN5VYC in 1969 or 1970 (
hard to remember exactly).
Then I started hamming in earnest in 1980 as KA4OHR. Became KE4XJ in
1980 at the Atlanta Hamfest.
But I went QRT in 1983 after selling my Kenwood TS-520SE, career and 4
kids. I bought a Flex 5000a in
August of 2010, built myself a tuner and put up an 80 Meter horizontal
loop fed with 600 ohm parallel
conductor line. The tuner is a balanced-balanced tuner made after the
design of Rich Measures, AG6K.
I found that the installation of PL-259 connectors (for the rig output
to the tuner and for the 2 Meter and 70 Cm
bands) is more difficult than I remembered. After messing up two
cables, I used the wonderful aid of the
world wide web and found recommendations for soldering the PL-259, and
occasionally SO-239, connectors
to the co-ax cable with a large soldering iron. In cold weather, I use a
small propane torch made for soldering,
if I was working outside. I started using this method for all PL-259
connections, but I found the heat hard
to control without overheating the coax jacket:
http://www.seed-solutions.com/gregordy/Amateur%20Radio/Experimentation/SolderCoax.htm
So now I use this method (unless it is very cold outside):
http://www.pituch.net/ARES/training%20docs/Coax%20Connectors%20%28Color%29.pdf
All the articles recommended using a multimeter to check the cable with
the soldered connectors for continuity
by measuring resistance (you should get a short circuit if everything is
at zero DC resistance). My digital
multimeter, a Fluke 110, also allows me to measure capacitance. Even
when you have a zero resistance DC circuit,
I suppose the connection could be so poor (at least in my case) that
there could be some capacitance on the line.
So this can be checked as well. I didn't check for capacitance, but I
did check for DC conduction in both directions,
shield to shield and pin to pin as well as pin to shield short circuits.
I finally ended up using a large soldering iron to heat the entire
connector while it the cable was held in a small
Panavise with padded jaws. I got the iron at Hobby Lobby. It was made
for working with stained glass and melting
lead solder for the glass panes. The iron is large, with a large heat
mass and is about 175-200 watts. The large
amount of thermal mass was necessary to heat up the connector to allow
solder to flow by melting into the holes
in the shield portion of the connector. The center pin was very easy to
solder. The weak point for me was the
soldering of the shield braid to the outer portion of the connector.
I also found a tool sold by DX Engineering which is wonderful for
preparing LMR-400 and RG-213 for accepting the
connectors. it is called a _coax cable stripper_, model number DXE-UT
and is found at
http://www.dxengineering.com/Products.asp?ID=240&SecID=104&DeptID=30
<http://www.dxengineering.com/Products.asp?ID=240&SecID=104&DeptID=30>.
DX Engineering has a lot of good
tools for sale for working with different antenna system components.
Now, all my coax cables work well, although I bet I can find a way to
make them fail ( I seem to be good at this).
I hope this helps you find and solve the problem(s). By the way, I am 62
years old and just received a prosthetic total left hip
replacement 8 weeks ago. So I, too, no longer climb up towers or onto
roofs, or even very tall ladders into a tree.
Unfortunatley, I still have to go up a short ladder to clean the gutters...
Brad A. Steffler, MD
KE4XJ
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