Friday, July 14, 2006

UHF Connectors are just Wrong!

I haven't got anything new in the shack, well the odd item. Most of its 2nd hand and most of its Yaesu. My latest exploits have been setting up a 6m station.

Wanting to keep it all looking nice I though I would use the 6m module in the FTV-107 transvertor.


Well sounds easier than you would imagine...

originally I bought an FT-107M with matching FTV-107.
But that had no 6M module...
Then I saw an FTV-901 with a 6M module which I bought.
Then i saw a 70cm mopdule for sale which I had to have.
But the 144 Mhz module in the FTV-901 was faulty so before I sell that I have to fix it.
It needs a 3SK51 which seem a tad pricey. But I notice an old FT101Z IF board for sale, has a good few 3SK51s on it... can you see where this is going!

Anyway, I restored the FT-107M + Transverter and replaced those dodgy SO239s with N Sockets and now it all works well.

Do I have a word for those trusty UHF (PL/SO239) connectors. Well yes, they are just wrong at every level.

How did they get that name. I couldn't think of something that was less suited to UHF?










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