Topband: Better F Connectors

[Garry Shapiro]

Pete,

No, not wrong, and the same as most RG8 and RG213! I have several 
cutters/strippers-- including, as it happens, that DataShark model.  
Because the cutter head said "11" and not "8", I had not tried it on RG8 
and just threw it in with the cheap Radio Shack cutter. I just did try 
it with a piece of CommScope RG8-type cable with a solid #10 center 
conductor--and it did a very nice job!

I am kicking myself for doing a recent cable replacement using a 
sheetrock knife (ugly), while that cutter sat on the workbench, But I 
intend to test the unit on a variety of cables, since --according to 
what I see on the web--the center conductor is typically 14AWG for RG11, 
11AWG for RG213 (stranded) and 10AWG for solid RG8 type cables. I am 
curious to see whether the cutter, in RG11 position, may score the 
center conductor a tad on RG8 or 213.

Thanks for inducing me to pursue this. (I had never heard of RG7, which 
appears to be a smaller CATV cable--about .32" O.D.--75 ohm Zo and has a 
messenger wire.)

As for compression F connectors, I fully agree that this is the only way 
to go with RG6 cables. One caveat--match the cable diameter to the 
connector or it won't stay together any better than the cheap crappy 
crimp connectors.

73

Garry, NI6T

On 1/31/2011 2:17 PM, Pete Smith wrote:
> I just did, and according to www.therfc.com, they are both .405.  Is 
> that wrong?
>
> 73, Pete N4ZR
>
>
> On 1/31/2011 4:11 PM, Garry Shapiro wrote:
>> You might check the O.D. of RG11 vs .RG213 before making that statement.
>>
>> On 1/30/2011 9:04 AM, Pete Smith wrote:
>>> I may be the last person on this reflector to catch on to compression F
>>> connectors, but just in case - these things are so much better than the
>>> classical crimp as to defy comparison.  I have never been able to 
>>> make a
>>> good connector installation on quad shield RG-6, but with the Ideal
>>> 33-633 crimper and their connectors, it yields high-confidence
>>> installations with minimum effort.  On the same shelf at Home Depot, I
>>> discovered the DataShark 70029 cutter and stripper - for $9.95 it 
>>> strips
>>> phone cable, Cat5-5e-6, RG6Quad, RG6, RG59, RG7 and RG11 (if the 
>>> latter,
>>> then I suspect RG-213 as well).  It is the perfect complement to the
>>> Ideal compression connectors because it automatically and precisely
>>> trims RG-6 family cables to fit perfectly.
>>>
>>
>>
>