[Antennas] LMR 400

Sat May 30 18:35:52 EDT 2009

On May 30, 2009, at 3:11 PM, Ron Youvan wrote:
>>>> Why not solder LMR 400? What is the downside? I soldered pl-259s to
>>>> LMR 400 to use on a VHF/UHF ant and the swr at the top of uhf 
>>>> went way
>>>> up. Does that make any sense?
>>> It really means that a poor soldering job was done, OR a cheap 
>> version of
>> the PL-259 was used which caused the poor soldering job and 
>> compounded the
>> problem.
>>> Done properly, there is no problem soldering to the silver plated, 
>> Teflon
>> insulated PL-259 connectors and using them from MF up to amateur 
>> band UHF
>> frequencies.
>>> Been there; Done that; for many, many years. Even did it with 
>> Belden 9913
>> prior to the advent of the LMR series.
>> I have a spool of LMR-400/UF in the basement, but I don't 
> remember if the
> braid is copper or aluminum. If it isn't copper or tinned copper 
> that is the
> soldering problem.

The braid of both LMR-400 and LMR-400-UF is tinned copper over the 
aluminum foil outer conductor.
Bob, N7XY