Some of you may remember my posting about our experience with beverages
using plastic boxes to house matching transformers. The black plastic boxes
turned out to be conductive which obviously led to a lot of head scratching.
Well, I've been working a small project using RG-174. I kept finding shorts
after putting connectors on the ends. Nothing was making sense so it got to
the point that I cut a foot long piece of the stuff, stripped back about an
inch of the outer insulated jacket at both ends and pushed the shield away
from the ends. I then took resistance measurements between the shield and
the ends (didn't strip back the inner insulation, just stuck the meter probe
in the end). So I'm still seeing resistance between the shield and the
center conductor.
On a whim I connected a meter probe to the inner "insulation" at both ends
of the piece. Sure enough it was a conductive material. I picked up a couple
hundred feet of this stuff from Mendelson's at Dayton a few years ago. As it
turns out construction consists of an insulated black outer jacket, stranded
copper shield, a black conductive material, a light opaque insulation and
then the stranded copper inner conductor.
My problem obviously existed anywhere that the inner black "insulated"
material was touching the shield.
This is the first time I've experienced something like this with RG-174.
Actually as I think about it, the stuff must have really great isolation
between the center conductor and the braid! I don't think this is typical
RG-174!
73 de Lar K7SV
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