On 7/25/22 9:17 AM, Drew Vonada-Smith wrote:
All,
Before anyone decides to engineer a full-scale change from UHF to N connectors, whether it be due to
"electrical superiority", "water resistance", "reliability", or any other
reason, I suggest that you poll the experiences and opinions of a few large station or multi-multi users who
have worked with both. You are likely to exit that conversation with a very different opinion.
The devil is in the details. Feel free to email me if interested.
73,
Drew K3PA
This is very much so. I would say that one might also be influenced by
the following:
Am I doing 1 connector or 100?
Am I doing the work myself, or am I ordering cables with the connectors
assembled?
Generically, for pretty much all RF connectors, there's multiple
workflows to put the connector on the cable - some are "one at a time,
using simple hand tools" , some are "use specialized tooling (crimpers,
etc.)" and that has a lot of effect on the ultimate cables.
Even between crimping there's a difference between "assembled one by one
using a hand crimper hanging from a harness on a tower" and "assembled
as a lot of 100 cables, using a air powered crimper in a factory with
rotary strippers and assembly jigs".
I will note (having bought hundreds of cables at work over the years)
that there are foul ups, even in a spaceflight qualified* assembly line,
so another factor might be "do they test the cables before shipping" and
"what's their return policy" - everyone I've ever worked with is happy
to replace a defective cable, but there are differences in "how quick"
you might get it. If you have to wait 3 months for the next production
run of that kind of connector that's different than "we'll ship it to
you tomorrow".
*a space qualified process might actually be worse than a big mass
production, since space stuff tends to be artisanally hand crafted with
lots of inspection steps and handling. Give me a cable made as a lot of
a million going into a mass production item with high
servicing/replacement costs - There's an incentive to "get the process
right". For instance, automotive engine control units have very low
failure rates in service. A 0.1% failure rate would be crippling to a
car maker.
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