I have to agree on all points. In my limited travels, I have seen a lot of
questionable plating and dielectric materials showing up on all sorts of RF
equipment. If its black with silver underneath, I would rather dig it out
of the junk box and use it rather than going to an electronics store and
taking pot luck. It took me a while to warm up to RF Specialties after
having been raised on products like Dage, Sealectro, Omni Spectra, Kings and
a bunch more I can't remember.
On a related issue...I was on assignment at the MJ trial in central ca
recently. I needed to build a short UHF duplex link from my live truck to
our rented space in the coffee shop which housed our ISDN, codecs, etc. I
reached into the place that should have held my spare base station antenna
for such things and nothing. Where the hell was it? Makes a good case for
not cleaning out the truck any more.
So with the intent of building a quick quarter wave UHF ground plane, I made
a quick run up to the only "real" electronics store (that I knew of) in
Santa Maria. I ask for a type N female 4 hole connector. The guy behind
the counter had to find somebody who knew what that was, then that guy had
to find somebody to find them. 15 minutes later I ended up paying 9.99 a
piece for 4 (all they had or ever will) ug-22 like, no name, no numbers
connectors and was happy to get them. The plating looked cheap but the
dielectric looked like teflon...silly me.
So off to my $150 a night room at the airport Raddison and my soldering
iron. Needless to say, as soon as my soldering iron hit the solder pot in
the center, the dielectric started to give way. It was not teflon, it was
some unknown thermo-polymer with a very low melting point! I would have
been better off grinding up some corn flakes and graham crackers, mixing
that with superglue and machining my own. Well, I got through it. Luckily
my hop was short and if I had any duplex noise, it was covered up.
My point is watch out for cheap dielectric materials! They can end up
costing you a lot more than you paid for them in performance.
td
wb6mie
Yes, I saw MJ and he looks creepier in person than he does on TV!
>
>This topic interests me, not just because I personally abhor adaptors in
>any
>repeater system, but also because I see that others are equally passionate
>about certain cables.
>
>After spending many years troubleshooting repeater systems cobbled together
>by my friends and colleagues, most of which were replete with every
>connector series known to Mankind- and which used many adapters to mate
>between series- I became aware that the most troublesome repeaters had the
>largest number of adapters.
>
>When I began to design my own repeater systems, I vowed to abide by three
>simple rules:
>1. Use only Mil-spec RG-400/U or RG-214/U cable for jumpers and
>interconnecting cables, and
>2. Make up these cables with the correct connectors on each end, using the
>specified tools, and
>3. Use only crimped connectors with silver-plated brass bodies,
>gold-plated
>contacts, and Teflon dielectric.
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