Ham Radio - A contact sport

I’ve decided to take a new approach to dealing with PL-259 coax connectors.  It’s a move away from completely soldered connectors to a crimp style PL-259 with a soldered tip.

It seems as though I’ve ruined many PL-259 coax connections and I don’t completely trust the ones that I’ve made. The biggest problem is usually the ground connection soldered through those little holes. Yes… I know that I need to use a heavy duty iron with a large mass in combination with another iron (for good heat transfer). I can make it work… but it usually takes a very long time… and if it’s been awhile since I’ve done it, the results can look like this:

Note that the hole at the top is still not covered, yet the bottom has a blob of solder that has come through the bottom hole - along with some melted inner insulation.  This was not a cheap connector either… it was from Cable X-Perts and seemed to be better quality than the Radio Shack PL-259s.

Well, I can eventually build coax runs by soldering (with practice, I’m ok but not perfect). However, I decided it was time to give a good crimp connector a try.

Yesterday, my order arrived from Fleeman Anderson and Bird. It consisted of a Ratcheting Coax Crimping Tool (with a hex die for LMR-400 or RG-8/U sized coax) and some crimp style PL-259s for  RG/8 sized coax.

Eager to put together my coax runs from the ham radio shack to the tower, I spent a few hours getting used to this new system. I made up a run of about 90 ft with the crimp style connectors.

While I’ve not found a good step by step set of instructions for doing this (with dimensions for RG/8 and these connectors), I think I have a process.

Here is the process I’m using to install PL-259 crimp connectors on RG8/U coax:

1. Strip the coax and core to the center pin (roughly an inch or so). I’m not yet convinced that my old coax strippers will work with this type of connector:
   
2. Pull the jacket off. With my strippers, it also slices off a separate section of the coax jacket itself (without cutting through the shield braid).
3. Install the crimping barrel of the PL-259 and the threaded outer shell.  
4. Flare the end of the shield. This will allow the PL-259 body to slide under the braid. Check to be sure there are no loose pieces of coax shield braid (ground) that come in contact with the center conductor. A vise may help with the next few steps.
5. Push the crimping section up over the coax braid up to the PL-259 body. 
6. Push the center body of the PL-259 onto the coax threading the center conductor into the tip. The body should go between the braid and the center insulation (coax dielectric).  If the dimensions were correct, there should be no coax braid exposed where the coax meets the PL-259 connector.
7. Solder the center pin (heat both the conductor and the pin). 
8. Crimp.
9. Install/weatherproof (PL-259s are not weatherproof connectors and you don’t want water in your coax).

 

PL-259 Connector Conclusion

The end result??? Well, it’s still a bit early to tell, but I think I’ll be sticking with the crimping method (still soldering the center pin of the PL-259).  Once I get the dimensions and cutting down, it should go fast and be more reliable than the solder-only style.