15-02-2019, 10:36 AM
(14-02-2019, 07:27 PM)dawson5 Wrote: It has always surprised me that the only coax plugs that seem to be available are cheap rubbish. The clamp won't go over the outer of the cable so the end result is poor. The days when we were able to use genuine Belling-Lee coax plugs are long gone. They were so easy to fit and stayed fitted.
Yes, the first 'substitute' for the Belling-Lee plugs came from RS. Apart from different knurling on the screw cap, the looked identical - same aluminium construction and polythene insulator but it was let down by the cable clamp.
The B-L clamp wars hardened spring steel and the four claws were each formed into a kind of cup (best way I can think of to describe it). When fitted to the thicker 'low-loss' coax used for UHF, a bit of brute force and ignorance was usually needed to expand the jaws enough for the clamp to go over the outer jacket.
Whichever size of cable, when the cap was tightened, the claws were forced into the jacket where the cupped arrangement ensured that they bit deeply into it, making a 'guaranteed never to pull off' job of it.
The RS ones, and other copies, had terrible cable clamps made of thin, flimsy material so that when the cap was tightened, the claws turned into flat strips of metal alongside the jacket with no physical strength at all!
There was one exception (which preceded the RS one by many years) made by Egen, with a brass body, a hard plastic insulator which didn't melt when you soldered the centre pin (!) and also had a decent cable clamp.
