[Milsurplus] Cannon connectors

[WA5CAB at cs.com]

A generic comment.

As someone (Mac?) pointed out, one generic name for the connector family of 
the plug Ray was asking for is MIL-C-5015, the US military specification or 
standard on the family, in effect since the 50's.  But as to the other two 
common names, which one someone uses mostly depends upon what industry you 
grew up in.  Hams, Army personnel of the 40's and 50's, and a couple of other 
groups or industries, tend to call them Cannon plugs (or connectors).    
Sailors (USN) of the 50's and 60's, the geophysical industry and the NDT 
sub-part of the Oil Patch (where I spent my professional day-job life), tend to 
commonly call  them Amphenol plugs.  Naval Air and the latter two groups used 
millions of Cannon K-Series connectors, which are not intermatable.  Since 
the early TV industry used a lot of the larger K-Series with coaxial 
contacts, maybe they called the 5015''s Amphenol plugs as well.  I don't have any 
explanation for why the other groups called them Amphenol plugs.

There were three or four other manufacturers as well.  But I never heard 
anyone use their names for the family.  As a bit of trivia, although the 
connectors made by Cannon, Amphenol, Pyle-National and others are interchangable 
as complete assemblies, You cannot take an insert from a Cannon connector 
and put it into an Amphenol shell, or vice-versa (well, actually you can in an 
emergency but you need a lathe or an extra part in order to do it).  The 
nominal diameter dimensions all seem to be about the same but the length 
dimensions are not.

Robert Downs - Houston
wa5cab dot com (Web Store)
MVPA 9480