Luke wrote:

hi Chris,

Welmcome to ham radio, I am sure you will enjoy it
as much as the rest of us have !

Since you are starting out, to solder you just need
the iron, 100-120 watts with chisel tip is just fine,
don't attempt with the lower wattage units, you end
up damaging the coax dielectric and have more problems.

Crimps have their place, but, you will need to buy or
borrow the crimp frame tool along with the correct
dies for the connectors you want to crimp.
This is a lot more expensive then the solder iron.

Be sure to buy and use name brand connectors,
quality is worth the price, you buy it once.
You can get a bag of the cheap ones to practice
with and then use the good Amphenol or other brands.

http://www.amphenolrf.com/products/a...ctions/274.pdf


Actually I plan on going out of my way to avoid UHF connectors. I plan
on doing a fair amount at 400+ mhz and the UHF connectors don't do well
up there. So about the only place I will be using UHF is at the radio
if I can't find a radio with N connectors. My watt meter has N
connectors and so do my antennas. I'm not sure why anyone would want to
use UHF on anything outside. The only way to protect a UHF from the
weather is with some coax wrap but the N has a seal built in, of course
some kind of wrap as additional protection isn't a bad idea either if it
is done right. In some cases I may even replace the UHF connector in
the radio with an N but only if it is an old radio no longer under warranty.


--
Chris W
KE5GIX

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