As far as I remember, I've only had one coax connector fail in over 55
years as a ham. From 61 through 84 they were all UHF solder type. I'd
never heard of a crimp type, or DIN. The one that failed was a double
female N-type Amphenol. Iit was a 75 meter sloper to the NE. That was
during the last sunspot cycle low when 40 was open world wide, 24 hours
a day. The first night it was up, I heard a number of European
countries over S9 although I didn't call any..
Basically with 5, 100' runs up the tower, the SPG at the house entrance,
the 6-pack at the base of the tower, grounding with bulkhead connectors
at the top and bottom of the tower, those 5 runs had 10 connectors each
for a total of 50 connectors. That doesn't count antennas at the shop
or feedlines from the shop.
To begin, those were all UHF, but were slowly converted to N-Type,
crimp. When all the antennas were up, counting connectors at the
rigsSO2R, I had close to 100 connectors in the system. I had a patch
panel behind the rigs in the shop that went to the tower, or an AV640.
I have a long way to go before I get that many antennas up again and I
have a second tower..
The only coax that has given me trouble with connectors were the CNT-240
and LMR240. 9913 was the only coax that failed.
There was the one that ruined the desktop but other than the hollow
dielectric serving as a hose, it wasn't the 9913s fault.
In the shop, I was feeding a sloping dipole from the 45G to the NW. We
had a really strong storm with high winds. Following that storm I saw
the SWR had gone really high. So, I started checking coax at the rig
headed toward the antenna.. That coax ran from a parch panel through 2"
EMT around to the West shop wall where it went through the wall. It then
went at an angle to the SW up to the feed point. Just before it went
through the wall there was a splice using a double female. When I
unhooked the male connector on the antenna side of the splice, water ran
out. Quite a bit of water ran out. That feed line was the only 9913 I
hadn't given away.
The wind had blown hard enough to move that feedline 5 to 6 feet East to
the edge of the roof where the shingles had worn a hole all the way to
the interior of the coax which then filled with water. The feedpoint end
was properly weatherproofed, but I didn't expect it to leak in the
middle. It was weatherproofed, but not roof proofed! I replaced that
section with LMR400 and ran it from the feedpoint to a fence post. From
there it went to the shop wall. Eventually that dipole was fed from a
remote antenna switch on the tower as were the other sloping dipoles.
73
Roger (K8RI)
On 9/8/2016 Thursday 4:10 PM, charlie@thegallos.com wrote:
<snip>
Everyone misses why I like DIN and/or N connectors
I've never had much luck with UHF crimp connectors, despite investing
quite a bit. I've NEVER had N or BNC CLAMP connector fail me (I have also
never had a BNC crimp fail - go figure) Never actually gotten to used a
DIN yet
I know they make clamp UHF, never gotten to try those either
It is just that soldering UHF frankly is no fun. Center pin is easy (easy
way to keep solder off? Use a resistance soldering iron) The body,
despite LARGER soldering irons and mid power resistance, not so much
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73
Roger (K8RI)
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