[Elecraft] XV50 no output

[Danny Higgins]

I remember buying some cheap BNC patch leads at a rally which worked fine.
After a swap around my RX went deaf and I couldn't work out what was wrong.
After a lot of diagnosis I started to inject a large signal and worked all
the way back to the BNC antenna input socket, where I found that the cheap
leads were 75 Ohm video types with fat centre pins that had splayed out the
centre of the socket so that while they worked, there was no connection to
the centre pin of a thinner 50 Ohm plug.  They went straight in the bin
after that.

Danny, G3XVR

-----Original Message-----
From: Elecraft [mailto:elecraft-bounces at mailman.qth.net] On Behalf Of Guy
Olinger K2AV
Sent: 21 November 2015 16:03
To: Dave Sergeant
Cc: elecraft at mailman.qth.net
Subject: Re: [Elecraft] XV50 no output

Hi Dave, and to the masses of readers we can hear breathing in the
background...

I've surely done that myself, once with the equipment out and ready to ship
before logic gained the upper hand and I started checking cords and
connectors, finally detecting a male BNC on a cord with a retracted center
pin.  Sound familiar?  :>)

So many of us have had experiences like this. Cord goes bad and to start off
we spend time trying to figure what's the matter with the box, the K3, the
transverter, etc.

One local ham went nearly nuts thinking his box had been supplied with
non-standard type F female chassis connectors until a friend discovered that
the male F connector in question had not been threaded in the manufacturing
process ! That story was source of a lot of local ham laughs.

Carefully checking the cords and connectors *first* seems to be
counter-intuitive. While logic says that connectors and wire in the cords
take all the mechanical abuse, our gut lurch is elsewhere. Maybe it's
because making cords is such a royal pain in the *ss and our subconscious is
rebelling against making another jumper.

I share your pain. Maybe half the time I take advantage of experience and go
after the cords first off. My personal gut lurch is still, "What the &&$#@$$
is wrong with the <insert box name> now !!!"

73, Guy K2AV

On Saturday, November 21, 2015, Dave Sergeant <dave at davesergeant.com> wrote:

> And it turned out to be the cable from the K2 to the transverter. The 
> pin of the BNC plug at the XV50 end had pushed back so not making.
> Together with the BNC/phone adaptor at the K2 end which is not the 
> best arrangement. I obviously need to make up a couple of proper 
> phono-BNC cables.
>
> I assume the BNC sockets on the XV50 are 50 ohm variants. I know the 
> pin diameters of 50 and 75 ohm are supposed to be compatible but maybe 
> that on the off the shelf BNC lead I used, presumably 75 ohm, has 
> thicker pins which caused the issue.
>
> 73 Dave G3YMC
>
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