[TowerTalk] Coax cables

[Steve Katz]

Good point, George.  I remember about paper bag outgassing from my ancient
days of semiconductor product management, when many semi leads were silver
plated and then stored in cardboard...didn't work out well.  Of course,
today everything is ESD-safe and no paper or cardboard is used in any kind
of electronic packaging.  PL-259s are normally packed in poly bags and I've
stored them for several years in uncontrolled environments without anything
changing color. -WB2WIK/6

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

> -----Original Message-----
> From:	Dubovsky, George [SMTP:G_Dubovsky at Grayson.com]
> Sent:	Thursday, February 06, 2003 10:46 AM
> To:	Steve Katz; 'n4gi at tampabay.rr.com'; 'towertalk at contesting.com'
> Subject:	RE: [TowerTalk] Coax cables
> 
> Silver easily forms an oxide which, as you have commented, is relatively
> easy to remove and is not an insulator (it's also not a great conductor,
> compared to the base silver). A far worse "corrosion", and one which is
> more
> and more common east of the Mississippi, is silver sulfide, formed on
> exposure to moisture and the sulfur in the air (downwind of all the
> coal-fired generators in the midwest). It is much harder to remove and it
> is
> a darned good insulator. If you store your silver-plated stuff in brown
> paper bags or cardboard boxes that are still outgassing the acid left over
> from the pulp-paper process, the black crap that forms will almost
> certainly
> be silver sulfide.
> 
> For some applications, nickle or gold flashed connectors are superior to
> silver. Different horses; different courses...
> 
> geo, n4ua
> 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Steve Katz [mailto:stevek at jmr.com]
> > Sent: Thursday, February 06, 2003 11:47 AM
> > To: 'n4gi at tampabay.rr.com'; 'towertalk at contesting.com'
> > Subject: RE: [TowerTalk] Coax cables
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > >  I'd
> > > > toss those and get silver-plated connectors, which
> > > > solder very quickly and
> > > > easily without any rework.
> > > > 
> > > > WB2WIK/6
> > > 
> > > The silver ones corrode like a SOB once taken out of
> > > the bag though.
> > > 
> > > Blake N4GI
> > > 
> > 	[Steve Katz]  Hi Blake, funny you should say that.  I 
> > use hundreds
> > of the silver plated PL-259s annually and have never, ever seen one
> > "corrode."  They do oxidize and slowly tarnish (turning from 
> > shiny white
> > silver color to kind of a tan or gray patina), which does no harm to
> > anything, including the connectors themselves.  Actually, 
> > silver oxide is
> > scrubbed off immediately by the flux in the solder, and I've 
> > found tarnished
> > connectors solder on exactly as quickly and easily as shiny 
> > ones.  If you
> > have silver-plated PL-259's that actually "corroded," I'd 
> > sure be interested
> > to see one, and see what happened to it.  (And maybe also see 
> > who made it,
> > and do a material analysis to see if it's really silver.)  -WB2WIK/6
> > 
> > >   
> > > 
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