RG213 and PL259s - your tips

So, to complement the A99 that I am about to put up, I am upgrading my coax to RG213 MIL.

Never handled this stuff before - it is a beast of a cable!

When attaching the PL259s, the RG213 core is so thick it almost fills the whole pin.
To solder, I cut it short so that the core finished about 4/5 of the way up the PL259 pin, then filled the pin with solder and finished off as normal.

(With the old RG58 I would just solder first and then trim afterwards).

I use heat-shrink to cover the end of the PL259 and the braid, then wrap the plug with amalgamating tape once fitted to the antenna.

Much different from what you guys would do?
Any advice appreciated as always

Sounds like you have it sorted Doc.

Some people like to leave the centre core longer and trim, as long as you have a sound connection it will work fine.

Only suggestion I would make is to use a multi-meter to check continuity, you don't want a single stray braid getting near the centre conductor, especially if you run the cable, seal it and find your SWR is all to C@ck

73's

Graeme.

First of all I'd start by buying decent ones, in my case Amphenol 83-1SP which are built exactly to spec and proper silver plated so very easy to solder. They're machined so to spec that if your coax doesn't fit it's because the coax isn't to spec.

As you'll see below unlike pretty much anything you can buy from a CB or Ham Store in the UK Amphenol aren't afraid to laser etch their name on their connectors. I bet you don't know who made yours.



They also do a data sheet that tells you exactly how to prepare the coax and where to cut the outer and inner insulation, how much of the center conductor and braid needs to be showing.

https://datasheet.octopart.com/83-1SP-Amphenol-RF-datasheet-10206618.pdf

When you prepare the coax and put the plug on the end it fits perfectly, the braid doesn't fold back on itself and is easily soldered to the shell through the four holes in seconds, not the 5 minutes you spend trying to get solder to stick with a typical £1 job.