[TowerTalk] Tarnished connectors

[Richard (Rick) Karlquist]

On 8/20/2019 4:16 PM, Wes wrote:
> I agree.  Also when going to gold, most  (all)  commercial plating shops 
> will put down a nickle barrier on the base metal then plate with gold.  
> If the gold is too thin and the skin depth too deep, your gold surface 
> is RF wise, actually nickle.

True, however the 5071A cesium standard is a special case.
The sections where Q matters use unplated OFHC copper
inside the vacuum of the cesium beam tube.  Typical
RF connectors have 35 microinches of hard gold which
is about 1 skin depth at 9.2 GHz.  That's good enough for the
parts that are in air.

Rick N6RK