[Elecraft] UHF connectors [was: Array Solutions Lightning Arrestor]

[Jim Brown]

Thanks for this excellent post, Alan! IMO, "mismatch loss" is a figment 
of the imagination of those who never get outside the lab. Transmission 
lines was one of my favorite EE courses, and I never heard of it until I 
heard it referenced in online discussions a few years ago. And the 
purported losses in connectors are an urban legend with almost basis in 
fact. Several years ago, W8JI poetically observed that if the 1 dB loss 
falsely attributed to UHF connectors was true, each would be burning 35 
W carrying a legal limit signal, and be starting fires!

Keeping track of losses in systems is, of course, a great thing. Our FD 
group runs (and has won several times) FD 1A QRP Battery. Every piece of 
coax in our station is low loss RG8 or RG11.

73, Jim K9YC

On 2/11/2018 8:03 PM, Alan wrote:
> Hi Al,
>
> Yes, but don't forget that the connector "loss" is a mismatch loss, 
> not absorptive power loss.  In other words, it affects the SWR 
> slightly but does not actually absorb any power.
>
> If you are using any kind of antenna tuner and tuning for 1:1 SWR, 
> mismatch "losses" have no effect.  Even if you aren't doing that, the 
> antenna is probably not a perfect 50-ohm resistive load anyway, so the 
> connectors' mismatches are about as likely to make the SWR better as 
> worse, depending on the phase and magnitude.
>
> But the general point is sound.  Power loss is even more important for 
> QRP than for QRO even though the  number of watts of loss is less.  
> When the other station can barely hear you, every dB counts!