[TowerTalk] Soldering Iron, Connectors, Cable

[Jim Brown]

On Tue,5/10/2016 1:18 PM, Bryan Swadener via TowerTalk wrote:
> The idea that only Amphenol produces good quality connectors is
> not correct. There are others. DX Engineering supplies top-shelf
> connectors and adapters at reasonable cost.

Unless you are in the position of a mfr or vendor to buy and test 
samples from known mfrs, or have worked for a mfr who has done that, 
you're in no position to know whether a mfr's product is good or not, 
let alone "top shelf." The electronic products I've seen from DXE are of 
good quality, but I've not seen their connectors or cables.

> Others have touted The RF Connection as a source of good quality connectors at reasonable cost.

That may be, but they sell a lot of JUNK connectors too. When I got back 
on the air around 2003, I filled my parts box with 5-10 each of the 5-8 
pin DIN connectors they were selling. They were junk -- metal that 
wouldn't take solder, dielectric that melted under minimal heat from a 
good iron.

In the same time frame, I also stocked up on lots of low cost coax 
connector adapters, barrels, elbows, and Tees at Chicago area hamfests, 
typically paying $2-$4 each. In the four years that followed, I learned 
the hard way that those connectors were JUNK -- they fell apart, 
overheated, went intermittent, and outright failed -- each time causing 
me lots of grief in troubleshooting the problem.  A $12 connector or 
adapter seems expensive, until you've crawled through an attic, along a 
coax run, or climbed a tower to find a $4 piece of junk.

>   They seem to have a wide selection.

Yes. They also sell Amphenol, and a broad selection of hard line 
connectors they have been able to find. But I will no longer do biz with 
them because I learned that they pulled what I consider to be a very 
dirty trick on their employee who  I dealt with on a large group 
purchase several years ago.

73, Jim K9YC