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Re: [TowerTalk] Can 1/4" or 3/8" Andrew SUPERFLEX be used for a Rotor lo

To: towertalk@contesting.com
Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] Can 1/4" or 3/8" Andrew SUPERFLEX be used for a Rotor loop?
From: Grant Saviers <grants2@pacbell.net>
Date: Fri, 17 Jul 2020 10:18:58 -0700
List-post: <mailto:towertalk@contesting.com>
re crimp connections warming from a QRO amp: Consider that DIN 7/16 connectors are rated to 40KW peak (voltage limit) and 3KW continuous at 800MHz and are all crimp (shield) or finger (conductor) clamp connections on Heliax. So maybe only a few hams will exceed the 15KW limit for DIN mated AVA5/LDF5 or 5KW for LDF4 at 30 MHz ;)

The rating of connector is the limiting factor, not the connection type.

Grant KZ1W


On 7/17/2020 05:50, jimlux wrote:
On 7/17/20 4:20 AM, Bill Steffey NY9H wrote:
Did anyone look at the M&P ( Italy) site ?


I've been involved for 20+ years with several divisions of what was CDT ( Mohawk, Montrose, West Penn Wire  etc) now merged into Belden Corp. Observed many braiding & bunching machines in operation.  I always understood that many of the best fabricating machines in the wire industry were made in Italy.  I drew a conclusion that coax form ITALY very well could be the best. That said , I watched several coax connector assembly videos provided BY M&P , and was surprised to see they suggest you do NOT solder the shield on either N type for PL-259. They must believe that the compression is adequate.  Why do I think that could be a warming while running that EXPERT KW ??????


I think there's ample info out there that says that compression connections (if properly made) are far superior to soldered connections. The challenge is the "properly made" - I've not done big 1/2" coax, just RG-58, microwave semi-rigid and regular old stranded wire. For all of those, if you have the right tool, it's easy to make a good compression connection that is gas tight, stands up to temperature cycling and vibration, etc. I would imagine that the bigger connectors and cables are the same.

However, it requires tooling specifically for your application, it isn't necessarily cheap, and so forth.  If you're doing a few connectors a month or year, as a hobby, it's hard to justify several hundred bucks for a set of tools to cover all connectors and cable sizes.  I think that's where soldering has its place (or ordering premade cables!)

When I was making dozens of cables in a day - it was easily worth the money, especially for the RG58 BNCs for Thin Ethernet. Spin the stripper around the cable, load the ferrule and connector, crimp, done. If it took 30 seconds it was probably because I was distracted.  Same if you're doing F connectors on RG-6 or RG-59.  There's no way I could have soldered on a connector that fast, especially if I had to wait for the iron to heat. And, in any case, that horrible polyethylene dielectric would have melted.
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