Exerting too much force with PL259’s can put stress on the radio SO 239 connectors, I have had some of the internal mounts work loose over time.
Top quality Amphenol connectors are more precisely machined, fit better and are much easier to work with. I don’t get failures with these and hand tightening seems to be sufficient in most situations. From: Elecraft [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Guy Olinger K2AV Sent: Monday, April 3, 2017 8:04 AM To: Phil Hystad <[email protected]> Cc: Elecraft Reflector <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [Elecraft] K3 loss of rx signal On Mon, Apr 3, 2017 at 10:19 AM, Phil Hystad <[email protected]><mailto:[email protected]%3e> wrote: > What do you mean “Hand Snug” is not good enough? Lordee, I've seen, done, and heard of these things so many times... PL259 the worst offender, with BNC close second. Mini-coax TMP in a class by itself. On the PL259, if the teeth around the edge of the mating shell aren't aligned to move down into the teeth of the SO239, you can "tighten" the PL259 to what seems tight, but a temperature change or a jiggle will let the teeth align. The connector is now loose. A variety of "false snugs" can occur with PL259, barrel, SO239 that have been outdoors and gotten stuff in threads. BNC's, if not inserted straight on, can seem snug, but not go down all the way. Then the twist shell can go a distance and won't seem to want to go any farther. It's very easy to not have enough finger strength to twist the shell enough to go all the way down. Mini-coax TMP connectors are bad because if the center pin does not match inside the socket it won't go down and cause an infamous intermittent that many have experienced. The flares on the male TMP have to go down until they are prevented from further insertion by the socket. 73, Guy K2AV ______________________________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:[email protected] This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html Message delivered to [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> ________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:[email protected] This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html Message delivered to [email protected]
