[CQ-Contest] RE: [TowerTalk] coax cables

[Steve Katz]

Hi Paul,

It doesn't have much to do with "wattage."  It has to do with thermal mass.

A large soldering IRON, the type with a 1/2" wide or larger chisel tip made
of copperclad iron and attached to a huge heating element barrel that weighs
a couple of pounds, has a large thermal mass.  So large that when it
transfers its heat to the barrel of a PL-259, the soldering iron tip
temperature doesn't even change, because its thermal mass is huge compared
with the small thermal mass of the connector.

A soldering GUN, on the other hand, regardless of its "wattage" rating, has
a tiny soldering tip, about an ounce of pure copper, and that's all it's
got.  Copper is very thermally conductive, so it heats very rapidly.  Which
means it also cools off very rapidly.  Which means that when its tip is
applied to the connector body, the connector, having much larger thermal
mass than the soldering gun's tip, sucks all the heat out of the tip and the
tip temperature immediately drops below soldering temperature, so you have
to keep the trigger pulled while it heats up again.

All this time, you're pouring heat into the connector body as it slowly gets
hotter, and hotter, and hotter, for quite a while.  While that's occurring,
the cable dielectric is melting.

Ugh.

A good IRON, on the other hand, transfers enormous heat very quickly without
cooling down and thus the connector body can be soldered within a couple of
seconds.  And then the iron can be removed so the connector can begin
cooling off before the cable dielectric melts.

And that's about it.

WB2WIK/6

"Success is the ability to go from failure to failure with no loss of
enthusiasm." -Winston Churchill

> -----Original Message-----
> From:	Paul Womble [SMTP:pwomble1 at tampabay.rr.com]
> Sent:	Tuesday, February 04, 2003 2:59 PM
> To:	Steve Katz
> Subject:	Re: [CQ-Contest] RE: [TowerTalk] coax cables
> 
> Hi Steve,
> 
> Very interesting discussion.
> 
> Is the problem with a gun it's wattage?  Or is there some difference
> between
> a gun and iron of the same wattage?
> 
> 73
> Paul K4FB
> 
> Steve Katz wrote:
> 
> >         Hi Chuck,
> >
> >         I don't know who Paul is (my name is Steve) but I think this was
> > directed towards me.
> >
> >         I agree with you.  Any time I see someone using a soldering
> "gun"
> > for a PL-259 installation, I cringe.
> >
> >         73,
> >
> >         Steve, WB2WIK/6
> >
> >