On Sun, 7 Dec 2008 15:52:21 -0800 (PST), JIMMIE
wrote:

Tim, I solder these on the N connectors all the time with no problems.

In past life, in a land far far away (Smog Angeles), I once worked for
and later ran a comm shop. At the time, UG-21/U male N connectors
were commonly available and in fashion. Our 460MHz repeater systems
were full of them so I had plenty of experience in soldering,
assembling, and repairing these connectors. I don't want to remember
all the 25 mile joy rides up the fire road to Santiago and Mojeska Pk
just to fix a problem caused by a flakey UG-21/U coax connector. Well,
to be totally accurate, I had equal problems with soldered PL-259
connectors. I fought these problems for years because I assumed there
was no better way.

Meanwhile, I was also involved in an avionics shop (on the business
end). They were slowly switching from soldered to crimp type
connectors. The owner insisted that is was worth the effort because
the number of connector failures and rework had approached zero with
the crimp type. I became a believer overnight.

Many years later, I designed a few marine radios for the USCG. The
specs would tolerate either solder or crimp. So, I asked which they
preferred. Crimp was the answer, because they never could teach the
techs how to properly solder a connector, while the crimper always
does it right. All our radios used crimp connectors, even on the
inside.

Roll forward more years and we have 10Base2 and 10baseT ethernet. The
former uses UG-21/u N connectors. The latter uses BNC. The nice
yellow coax cable with the flakey connector was a constant source of
headaches. The crimp type BNC's never failed (unless abused).

I'm not sure what to suggest. With skill UG-21/u can be made to work.
With luck, they can even be kept working in the field. However, I'll
take crimp type any day, especially after many year of experience
dealing with both.

--
Jeff Liebermann
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558