This is interesting.   I remember when I put up my first tower.  I was on a 
budget.  I had good coax for my VHF antenna.  Then, I picked up 100-feet 
from Radio Shack for my junior tribander.

The first or second day, I was working a JA on 20-meters.  All of a sudden, 
the signals dropped, and my SWR jumped.  I went out and someone told me it 
looked like the coax had come off of the tribander.

I don't know if I had enough of a loop on it or what, but the damn crimp-on 
connector was living in the driven element and the coax was just hanging 
there.  Had to untape the cables, take that one down and resolder it to a 
real connector and bring it up the next day.

Now, I just feel uncomfortable using crimped coax.  But, if that is what LMR 
recommends, then I hope they have better crimp-on connectors.

Steve, K8SP
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Alan R. Downing" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Saturday, June 07, 2014 1:18 PM
Subject: Re: West Mountain Crimping Tool and Coax?


> Colin, none of the LMR series of coax are supposed to be soldered.  I buy 
> a
> ton of connectors for LMR240, LMR400, LMR600, and LMR900, and not a single
> one of them is soldered.  Times Micro, the maker of LMR coax, wants their
> connectors to be crimped on.  I own a whole bunch of special prep and
> crimping tools specifically for the different sizes of LMR coax, because 
> the
> connectors have to be crimped.