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Re: [TowerTalk] PL-259 - reuse or replace

To: towertalk@contesting.com
Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] PL-259 - reuse or replace
From: Jim Brown <jim@audiosystemsgroup.com>
Reply-to: jim@audiosystemsgroup.com
Date: Sun, 14 Feb 2021 21:56:30 -0800
List-post: <mailto:towertalk@contesting.com>
On 2/14/2021 1:37 PM, AB2E Darrell wrote:
There's a couple good companies on there that have quality PL-259s, even 
teflon, and they are in stock.

I wouldn't consider using anything but Amphenol 83-1SP UHF connectors and their family of adapters. They aren't cheap, but I have had LOTS of issues with cheap knock-offs unbranded knockoffs. Those issues have included connector dielectrics that melt when you try to solder them, adapters that fall apart physically, flimsy construction of center conductors in adapters, intermittents that are hard to trace. There are cheap elbow adapters where the center conductor is a tiny spring!

The VERY GOOD low cost alternative is used vintage MIL-spec connectors with their part numbers stamped on them. They are of very good quality, and are the things I stock up on at ham flea markets.

I learned this the hard way -- when I got back on the air in 2003 after many years off, I stocked up on a lot of this stuff, and spent the next 8 years chasing down the problems they caused me.

And don't get me started on the truly awful cable-mounted of connectors to mate w3th DIN-series accessory jacks of rigs from the big three JA companies. The jacks within the products are fine, but the junk sold to hams is junk -- pins made from metals that you can't solder to, and dielectrics that melt when you try to.

73, Jim K9YC
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