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Re: [Amps] World's worst coax connectors

To: amps@contesting.com
Subject: Re: [Amps] World's worst coax connectors
From: "Joe Subich, W4TV" <lists@subich.com>
Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2023 13:44:15 -0400
List-post: <mailto:amps@contesting.com>

On 4/20/2023 1:27 PM, Jim Garland wrote:

Not to be outdone, the television industry has responded with its own
bad standard, the type F coax "connector," which uses the unsupported
inner wire of the coax as the pin of the male plug, and a shoddy
arrangement to mate the shield."
I don't know that one can conflate the cable industry with television
broadcasting.  In 40 years, the only places I saw F connectors in either
a TV broadcast facility or remote production facility was in TV or
satellite receivers (for IF - block down converter to tuner - links)
*after* CATV became ubiquitous.

73,

   ... Joe, W4TV

On 4/20/2023 1:27 PM, Jim Garland wrote:
As you probably know, the  famous Art of Electronics, by Paul Horowitz (W1HFA) and Winfield Hill, is the comprehensive go-to bible for hams and other electronics devotees. Published by Cambridge University Press. H and H  offers the following assessment of the ubiquitous RCA phono connector.

"The so-called phono jack used in audio equipment is a nice lesson in bad design, because the inner conductor mates before the shield when you plug it in; furthermore, the design of the connector is such that both shield and center conductor tend to make poor contact. You've undoubtedly /heard/ the results! Not to be outdone, the television industry has responded with its own bad standard, the type F coax "connector," which uses the unsupported inner wire of the coax as the pin of the male plug, and a shoddy arrangement to mate the shield."

Having lived and suffered with RCA phono jacks for many decades, I agree completely with this assessment. That presumably smart Collins engineers decided it was acceptable to pump a hundred watts of RF through a phono jack on an otherwise finely engineered radio seems to me to be an inexplicably poor decision. It is surpassed only by the equally unfortunate decision to route deadly high voltage through a (thankfully obsolete) one-pin Cinch-Jones connector which has no shield or ground connection.

  73,

Jim W8ZR (who is in a cranky mood, today)



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