Re: foolproof coax tv plugs?

I'm sure there will be plenty of advice on this. My extra bit is to say that I prefer to solder (or crimp if applicable) the centre conductor. Very often, one of my first tasks when I stay in a hotel, is to fiddle about with the short coax lead from the TV to the wall socket. Almost invariably, the inner conductor copper has tarnished a little, and ditto the plated centre pin of the plug, and they don't make very good contact. It may take years to happen, but eventually the signal WILL deteriorate as a result.

HTH

Rick

on them.

Here's one that shows how to do it properly, the one true way:

BTW there are much better alternatives to the old Belling-Lee type plug available nowadays, such as these

Not the way I was taught - at the BBC. ;-)

The braid should be twisted into a wire and wrapped round the inner under the clamp - one full turn. The plug insulator then pushes it against the bottom of the crimp when it's tightened.

Unfortunately I bought 1000 of them off Ebay. ;-)

That method's quite common, but certainly not as good (IMHO) as the one shown on Richard Mudhar's megalithia site. The latter gives a better braid connection and maintains a higher screening factor. It used to be shown on the BBC 'engineering information' web site, before it became the current somewhat dumbed down 'rception advice' - so there is clearly disagreement within the BBC (nothing new there).

I don't see how - the braid will be maintained right up to the insulator in the plug doing it my way - and well within the metal body.

In any case, most TV UHF cable braid is pretty rudimentary. If using a decent UHF cable system, you wouldn't use Belling Lee plugs...

Ah - I was taught that method rather before the days of websites. Or indeed colour TV. Or UHF, come to that. ;-)

I was thinking about this last night - what would the performance be like if the download is terminated with an f-type plug and connection into equipment via a f to belling-lee connector? Would there be an insertion loss from the f-bl connector such that it would outweigh the benefit of using an f-type in the first place?

Neil

Screening-wise, almost certainly better, especially with a decent crimp F-connector (e.g. Cabelcon).

Insertion loss as such would be negligible, but some F - adaptors have quite poor return loss figures (high SWR) which could lead to mismatch loss and standing-wave ripple effects. In practice you're not likely to have a problem in the UHF band, but in the upper part of the satellite IF band (up to 2 GHz+) choose your adaptor carefully.