11m only operator here.. cerified with engineer at the manufacturer, liquid electric tape, marine grade or otherwise, has no metal properties. peels off later if needed. great for sealing and protecting stuff. wind can make everything wiggle a tiny bit. loose coax on trucks causes lots of problems because they don't check their system or watch for swr warning lights. this might be laughable within the ham community, but truckers are the ones that bring all of our stuff. some of us out here are still using radios 14hrs/day to make sure everything goes smooth on the roads. i put l.e.t. on every single humidity entry point outside, and no issues anymore. lrm240 or 400 on everything. never amplified. snap on chokes everywhere. thanks for your videos.
Well Ape I learnt something again today, there is a 50 ohm and 75 Ohm BNC connector. Just to confirm I asked my AI friend.... I asked: "is there a difference between a 50 ohm BNC connector and a 75 ohm BNC connector" And yes there is. Thanks again for bringing this to the my attention. :-)
Yep, everything in the antenna system (including connectors and the radio) has an impedance and ideally they should all match. Otherwise you get standing waves from reflected power, which is what the SWR measures.
ABR Industries is VERY good stuff. I just ordered 35 ft of RG213 from them and got 1.2 SWR at higher frequencies( 2m/70cm). They are my go to for coax from here on out!
Good info guys. I only buy cable from electrical/electronic wholesalers. Thats the one thing I dont risk on ebay etc. Its good that you cut down the live streams Mr Ape.👍
I did my research…looked at losses in the frequency range I was using …spent the money! Really good coax! The first month was great! Then came issues that I chased for 7 months issues were intermittent at first progressively got worse over time to the point it was unusable! The main issue was on the receive side, I could transmit just fine! So did not want to blame my new High dollar coax so blamed everything else! Finally, after a very expensive process of elimination I took down my tower…had too really. Had to be the antenna! So, I bought a new antenna…SWR of 1.2 on tx and 1.3 on rx 500 MHz between frequency’s for the 7 months’ worth of issues…Just had to be antenna! So up goes new antenna… Yup same problem! Ok now I want to burn it to the ground! So after cooling off a few days I took the tower down again 65ft so a process…Cut my new 15.00 boot off the antenna connector and took connector apart… OMG not only was it green with corrosion it was never assembled right … so cut of some cable put new end on…Put tower back up…and before I even powered up the radios I took the other end apart… radio end and sure enough green with corrosion not assemble right! So same deal cut it back put on new end… Radio never worked better! So, point is I paid big money for cable, connectors, assembly of said cable… Well, it’s only as good as who puts it together in the first place! One of the things I bought to help trouble shoot this problem was a VNA analyzer although it didn’t help me solve the problem at the time it did help me to understand that the problem was solved! My lack of knowledge using the VNA was the problem, not the VNA. Name of company, coax, connectors, Not important! It was a mistake! Yes, a costly mistake that I have put in the category of education expenses …
One thing for sure I will never again have anyone else put a connector on for me especially when its 100’ in the air! I raised my tower this fall from 65 to 100’ The coax and connectors are top of the line …It just wasn’t on my radar when trouble shooting this issue …Hopefully this dose help others…always enjoy your content! @@TheSmokinApe
I have good luck with AB&R coax. When I order long lengths of coax I order it with a male and female 259 on each end. Why? Eliminates a barrel connector and a point of fail. AB&R will custom build such cables. Some other builders of coax will do the same.
Hey Ape can you make a video on the proper way to terminate coax. Like i have a spool, buy some nice pl239 connectors and then what? I'll tell you what, i don't know what I'm doing so i never get it right and my swrs are elfd up.
@@TheSmokinApe Lame answer - people have lots of these already. They don't remember where they came from. Besides, if there's any difference, surely it must be discernible by some technical means.
Hoping you can help. I have a quad band transceiver and antenna that also receives AirBands. Can I use a duplexer? To have the quad band antenna and an air band antenna running into the transceiver? Is that what a duplexer does? Obviously I can’t transmit on airbands I just want to receive. Also, should I use the highest rated least loss coax? The RG-213? Is it worth it to pay more?
@@TheSmokinApe okay, thank you. So i have both a quad antenna and an antenna tuned for air-bands, I need the duplexer as I am not trying to split the frequencies, I’m trying to run the 2 antennas into the 1 radio. Or am I confused?😀
Hi Ape & Chuck... I have a question for you... Can you OVER choke your coax with choke(s)? How can you tell? What is the effect of over choking and how can you test or measure? As far as coax is concerned... I try to buy the best.. worth it in the long run. Art W1SWL
sent you message regards vna on scanner and swr on 113.500 ok quick check swr 1.232 great confused on return 19.651 ..s21 gain 79.268db phase 97.6 . check cable and its cheap so going to change ,, thanks for advice
