Dee Flint wrote:

"Brad" wrote in message
...

"Michael A. Terrell" wrote in message
...
robert casey wrote:


I used to tin the braid then use a small tubing cutter to trim the
shield to the right length. I used a drill to remove the plating from
the holes and file all the chrome off between the holes. I tinned the
center conductor and put a drop of liquid RMA flux on the center
conductor and the braid before I put the coax into the plug, then
soldered all four holes and the center pin. I didn't melt the
dielectric, and you couldn't pull the coax out of the plug.

That's a hell of a lot of messing about and time consuming too. A crimp on
PL259 for RG58 series or RG213 series cables would take about 2 minutes to
install, no soldering, no chance of heat damage, no shorts and they can be
fitted in the field.

Brad.

As with anything else, there are both advantages and disadvantages. The
crimp on ones seem to be more prone to having a shorter life. Why, I don't
know.

Dee D. Flint, N8UZE

Dee, I have worked in broadcast and manufacturing. 95% of the failed
RF connectors I've seen were crimped. I've never had a soldered PL259
come off after I started using the described method. The assemblers at
Microdyne were required to put completed crimped cables into a fixture
that applied the manufacturer's specified tension on each crimped
connector. Most of the SMA we used were still soldered, either on flex
or semi-rigid cable. In 30 years I have only seen a few cracked solder
joints on semirigid, and that was on N" connectors in Collins 4 GHz
Satellite TV receivers. Over half of the units I repaired for United
Video Cablevision had bad solder work on the RF input connectors.

I was at a hamfest a few years ago and bought a box full of PL259
connectors that were cut off bad cables. I used needle nose to pull the
insulation out and held the shell over a propane torch a few seconds and
dropped it on the bench to remove the loose stands and old solder.
After they had cooled I did the center pins that way. No damage to any
of them and all were nicely tinned for re-use.
--
Former professional electron wrangler.

Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida