Is it worth paying a high price for sa supposed quality plg or can
equally used the much cheaper ones?

Been QRT for over 25 years and should be on the air in a few weeks
with a FlexRadio 6300

TIA

Guy G4DWV/4X1LT

On 8/14/2014 5:24 PM, DrTeeth wrote:
Is it worth paying a high price for sa supposed quality plg or can
equally used the much cheaper ones?

They are not all equal. Aside from actual physical dimensions being
"not right." There's also a matter of material, finish and dielectric.


--
Jeff-1.0
wa6fwi
http://www.foxsmercantile.com

Is it worth paying a high price for sa supposed quality plg or can
equally used the much cheaper ones?

Been QRT for over 25 years and should be on the air in a few weeks
with a FlexRadio 6300

The cheap ones tend to be nickel-plated brass. They can be a bear to
solder (it doesn't "wet" nickel easily) unless you grind off the
nickel to expose the brass. The cheap ones also tend to use
poorer-grade insulation such as nylon, which doesn't stand up to
high-heat soldering well... and since you need to apply a lot of heat
to these things to solder them, that's a problem. And, I've seen
cheapies whose thread dimensions seemed to be a bit "off" or which had
some roughness in the thread or barrel, and didn't fasten into the
socket smoothly.

The really good ones are silver-plated, and take solder much more
easily. They also use Teflon insulation, which resists soldering heat
quite well.

"Cheap is often very expensive". It's frustrating to have to go
through two or three cheap connectors, several installation attempts,
and a "Damn it, there's an internal short, gotta cut it off and try
again" which ends up costing you lots of time, and (sometimes) more $$
on connectors than if you'd just gone ahead and bought a good one to
start. And, having your rig not work well (or even suffer high-SWR
damage) because your connector wasn't *really* soldered right, and
went "open" or shorted out at the top end of the feedline right in the
middle of a contest or new DX contact... well, "imagine the grousing"
as my wife puts it.

HRO carries silver/teflon PL-259s for $2.69, Quicksilver sells 'em
4/$12 (or 4/$10 for the crimp-on style), and other mail-order dealers
probably have comparable prices. "Saving" a buck or so buying a cheap
connector is really not worth the risk of hassle.

On 8/14/14, 6:28 PM, David Platt wrote:
"Cheap is often very expensive".

There are many places in life to cut corners. Connectors is not one.
Neither is coax.

73, Steve KB9X

"DrTeeth" wrote in message
...
Is it worth paying a high price for sa supposed quality plg or can
equally used the much cheaper ones?

Been QRT for over 25 years and should be on the air in a few weeks
with a FlexRadio 6300

Be warned that there are both metric and imperial versions of the
PL259/SO239
combinations.

I fell over this incompatibility a few years ago when buying a second-hand
2m colinear, despite that I had been using them for 20 years previously.

On Thu, 14 Aug 2014 18:24:05 EDT, DrTeeth wrote:

Is it worth paying a high price for sa supposed quality plg or can
equally used the much cheaper ones?

Been QRT for over 25 years and should be on the air in a few weeks
with a FlexRadio 6300

Ummm... a Flexradio 6300 retails for $2500 and you're trying to be
cheap on coax connectors? That's 0.1% of the retail price for a
silver plated and PTFE connector. I'll play along, but your question
seems a bit absurd.

There are many things wrong with the PL259, few of which will have an
effect on your HF operation.

1. The PL259 is not 50 ohms and therefore produces an "impedance
bump" on the line. You can see it with a TDR (time domain
reflectometer). However, unless you're using it at microwave
frequencies, it won't have any effect on your operation.

2. The PL259 plating has an effect on PIM (passive intermodulation
distortion) where the non-linearities of some plating material, or the
insufficient thickness of the plating, can cause mixing. Also,
magnetic materials used in the connectors are a problem. Nickel
plating is the worst. White bronze or Nexcote are the best. Mixing
plating types is really bad. Unless you're running full duplex on HF
(unlikely), or listening for really weak signals at VHF/UHF and higher
frequencies, it's unlikely to be a problem.

3. The PL259 is a PITA to assemble correctly. You have a chance of
getting it right with a crimp connector, but the conventional PL259 is
an ugly mess to assemble. This is fairly accurate. Note the vise
grips and butane torch:
http://www.seed-solutions.com/gregordy/Amateur%20Radio/Experimentation/SolderCoax.htm
Despite such methods I still see broken jumper cables with rotating
connectors. Even if it's done correctly, they still tend to fall
apart. Extra credit for nickel plating that is difficult to solder.

4. The necessary insulation comes in a variety of materials. Nylon
is the worst as it's hydroscope (absorbs moisture). Bakelite is
brittle, but deteriorates over time. Some kind of white stuff looks
ok for RF, but melts easily. PTFE (Teflon) is probably the best and
does well at high power levels.

--
Jeff Liebermann
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

On 8/16/14, 4:24 PM, Bill Horne W1AC wrote:
"Was that over the top? I can never tell ..."

Yes. Much appreciated. Thank you.

On Sat, 16 Aug 2014 17:25:15 EDT, just as I was about to take a herb,
Jeff Liebermann disturbed my reverie and wrote:

Ummm... a Flexradio 6300 retails for $2500 and you're trying to be
cheap on coax connectors?

No I was not. I was just asking if it is worth spending more. I am
very happy to pay for quality but not prepared to throw my money away.
Got some very nice RG213 coax too - even though the run will be less
than 10 meters.

Just because something is more expensive does not necessarily mean
that it is better. Many things do not sell if priced cheap and fly off
the shelf when over-priced.

I do not mind paying for quality at all. In fact, I have bought some
very expensive high-quality compression PL259s that cost approx $9
each.
--
73's de Guy G4DWV/4X1LT

In
(Bill Horne W1AC) wrote:

On Sat, 16 Aug 2014 17:25:15 EDT, Jeff Liebermann
wrote:
On Thu, 14 Aug 2014 18:24:05 EDT, DrTeeth wrote:

Is it worth paying a high price for sa supposed quality plg or can
equally used the much cheaper ones?

Ummm... a Flexradio 6300 retails for $2500 and you're trying to be
cheap on coax connectors? That's 0.1% of the retail price for a
silver plated and PTFE connector.

According to Edmunds, a Mercedes-Benz CL65 AMG has an MSRP of over
$200,000.00. Does that mean that everyone who buys one should always
use the most expensive brand-name fuel available?

The quality of a connector or of gasoline is not determied by price, but
by its actual suitability for the use to which it's put.

If your cheap connector behaves well in your application, then the cheap
one is good enough for you.

--
Bert Hyman W0RSB St. Paul, MN

On Mon, 25 Aug 2014 14:35:41 EDT, just as I was about to take a herb,
(Bill Horne W1AC) disturbed my reverie
and wrote:

According to Edmunds, a Mercedes-Benz CL65 AMG has an MSRP of over
$200,000.00. Does that mean that everyone who buys one should always
use the most expensive brand-name fuel available?

I use economy tyres on my 320E CDi. I do not believe - and I have
looked and asked many tyre people if the branded tyres are 100%
'better' (whatever that means) than the cheaper ones at half the
price. Nobody has yet convinced me.
--
Cheers,

DrT

** You've never known happiness until you're married;
** but by then it is too late.