My friend, Jon Titus, KZ1G, sent this to me a couple of days ago. He writes:
Here’s a presentation I gave at our club meeting on Saturday. One of our members gave me some PL-259s he bought at a junk shop. Probably from old military equipment. I couldn’t take them apart so I cut one apart to see why. They used this soldering technique that seems to simplify assembly of PL-259s with RG-58 cable. I have used it with good results.
It seems to me that this would work just as well when putting PL-259s with the UG-176 reducer onto RG-59 and RG-8X coax.
Dave, N8SBE says
I’ve gone over to crimp connectors. I got a crimp kit from Debco and now I get a discount whenever I replenish my connectors from them. Among other things, I no longer run the risk of melting the insulation into the shield braid, or even shorting it out to the center conductor, by using a high-wattage gun, as advised above.
My six-band two-element spider-boom quad required 14 connectors total, and it was a lot easier going the crimp route than trying to solder all those connectors. It’s been up several years now, and still performs like a champ.
Jon Titus says
I like crimp connectors, too, but I often wonder how well the braided shield makes contact with the PL-259 body. Perhaps someone has an old one that spent several years outdoors and could saw it in half lengthwise so we could examine the braid connection. I recommend Scotch-brand “2228 Moisture Sealing Electrical Tape” as a good way to protect exposed connections against corrosion. Lowe’s and Home Depot carry small and medium rolls. –Jon, KZ1G
loren says
nice tweak….I’ll try this method on my next pl-259 install
Gayland says
Crimp is good. I have tried them on VHF and there is problems. It takes a good
mechanical connection on the VHF and UHF and upper bands. On the lower freqs
that is fine. 50 years of amateur radio lots of lessons learned.