[TowerTalk] PL259 Cobbectors Part 2 - Murray W9EHQ

[jimlux]

On 5/13/16 11:11 AM, Jerry Gardner wrote:
> On Fri, May 13, 2016 at 1:10 AM, JOHN POWELL <john.powell at kinect.co.nz>
>  wrote:
>
>>
>> I have accessed Murray's You Tube production by using Google Search
>> facilities, entering "PL-259 connector installation W9ehq". Bingo
>> straight to the You Tube item. Very interesting and informative.
>>
>
> And complete overkill. How many tools did he use in that video? Soldering
> iron, razor blade, air compressor, Dremel tool, file, pliers, dikes. I
> especially like how he cuts through the tinned braid and dielectric by free
> handing a Dremel tool with a cut-off wheel--I'll bet your average ham would
> have no problems with that move. ;-)
>
> I'm perplexed, but not really surprised, that hams still insist on using
> this kind of backwoods engineering when a better way has been available for
> decades. I guess old habits die hard.
>

If you've been doing it for decades, it's the "easy way" for YOU. The 
question is whether it's appropriate for this to be promulgated as the 
preferred approach for new people starting.

It's like using any tool which requires significant skill and learning: 
once you know, you prefer using it, because it's fast and easy.

If someone were given the task of playing, say, Beethoven's Fuer Elise 
by the end of the month, a lot would depend on whether you have 
experience with piano playing.  If you're already a reasonably skilled 
piano player, you'd sit down with the sheet music, and in a reasonably 
short time, you'd be knocking off this instructional favorite.  If you 
knew NOTHING about playing piano, then getting a computer and 
programming a MIDI sequence might be a more effective strategy: you 
could learn enough about how to read music and get the notes into the 
file in a few days, and after that, it's just the tedium of transcribing 
using keyboard and mouse.   No "musician" would contemplate such a 
thing, but, then, most musicians are familiar with a piano keyboard and 
would probably take an intermediate approach of using the keyboard as a 
data entry device, and then fix up the timing and note errors later.