A couple of months ago, I subscribed to the Elecraft mailing list as I was thinking of building a K1. I’m still thinking about it, but even if I never buy one, I think I’ll stick with the mailling list. The reason is that there’s just a lot of good ham radio information on it.
For example, a while back someone asked about antenna connectors. Gregg Lengling, W9DHI replied:
Let me add my 2 cents worth. I spent over 20 years in the 2-way radio field and operated 800 MHz repeaters and systems all over SE Wisconsin. We went to crimp style connectors for all cable from RG8 type and down. We always bought solid center conductor RG58 for mobile installs to facilitate the N-Crimps we used. Granted a good crimping tool with die set will set you back almost $100.00 but then you’ve always got it and the connectors are only a buck or 2 a piece. The “N” connectors are 3 pieces. The center pin, the body and the ferule. Very easy to install and always the same, never a worry about a bad connection.
I personally probably did over 20,000 mobile installs in my life and never had a connector problem. We also used RG142B for all our interconnecting cables on repeaters and combiners. This is 58 sized double shielded Teflon cable, and we used all crimp connectors on it with no duplex noise and no reflected power. We always swept the whole system once complete so I know that this is the way to go.
We did a lot of government work for the military and they have rules that don’t allowed standard soldered connectors. You must use crimps, so I figure if it’s good enough for the military it’s good enough for me. I think that their reasoning is that you can replicate the connection many times, whereas someone soldering a connector, never does it same twice.
I then asked:
Can you tell me what brand of crimper you used or would recommend? I’ve been rather unhappy with soldering UHF connectors and this really does sound like the way to go. $100 is really not a lot if you experiment with antennas much and consider all the time you spend (waste?) soldering PL259s.
To which, he replied,
I have the MaxRad Deluxe Crimp tool kit. It includes the crimper with 3 sets of dies, and an antenna rod cutter for mobile 17-7ph Stainless whips. These are the die sizes (they are all hex dies except for the .042 center conductors that are square dies). .042, .068, .092, .178, .213, .255, and .412 this covers RG58 and 59, RG172 and various forms of that size plus it will crimp 9913 and RG8 variations. I bought the set from Primus Electronics (http://www.primuselectronics.com) and also get my crimp connectors from them.
Certainly makes me want to toss all those PL-259s and never solder one again.
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