[ARC5] Collins stuff and RCA jacks

[Geoff]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Howie DeFelice" <howied231 at hotmail.com>
To: <arc5 at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Tuesday, May 14, 2013 2:44 PM
Subject: Re: [ARC5] Collins stuff and RCA jacks


> Having spent most of my life as a field engineer, my experience has been 
> that  the chassis end of a BNC connector is not very rugged unless the 
> cable end is plugged into it. It was routine to find the chassis end bent 
> to the point of not being usable. In extreme cases it was just broken off 
> at the base. It's hard to beat the ruggedness of an RCA connector.
>
>
> -Howie AB2S

RCA rugged? Thats a real stretch.

Heathkit had so much trouble with them in the SB-200 that they issued a 
field bulletin about replacing with a BNC and in later production went with 
a SO-239. And yes a ceramic chassis mount was used.

Who cares about impedance bumps at HF since the PL-259 is such a small 
fraction of a wavelength to be meaningless? The same holds at 6M and 2M even 
at the 1500W level providing some cheap import POS isnt used for the male 
and female. The connectors barely get warm on 2M even in a contest.
At 222 MHz the impedance difference is noticable on a Bird and when I went 
from 400W to 1500 it was strictly mil spec N's.

Carl


Ive found the RCA's to be a constant source of problems when servicing 
Collins, Drake, Heath, and other gear using them.  For the aggravation they 
give with seating and corrosion it is better to replace them...they werent 
designed to be still used over 50 years later.

Just my 2 cents from someone who has been steadily fixing this stuff since 
they were new.


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