[Elecraft] OT: Checking coax jumpers before soldering

[Frank Precissi]

This is along the same lines of the PL-259 connector soldering.  Although
off topic for this group some collective wisdom might help someone other
than myself in the future.

How can you check to see if coax is still "good"?  Sure we can test for
shorts with a multimeter, but if the coax has been crushed and the
dielectric has been deformed, obviously things will be wonky when we put RF
through it.

Is it possible to short one connector with a 50ohm resistor, then on the
other end attaching an antenna analyzer and sweep the ham bands looking for
obvious SWR changes?  I mean to me (read: newbie when it comes to this) it
should show a flat 50ohms across the bands, correct?

I have a few spools of 100' RG8X that I'm sure have been slammed in a
sliding glass door more than once.  No sign of any trauma on the jacket or
shorts, but I cant tell if the dielectric has been mangled inside.  I
really don't want to blindly ditch perfectly good coax.

Any tricks of the trade when it comes to this?

73

Frank
KG6EYC


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