On Tuesday, April 12, 2016 at 11:46:36 AM UTC-4, Jeff Liebermann wrote:

I don't solder my wire antennas, so that's not a problem for me.
Soldering interferes with my ability to make changes in lengths.


Not even connectors?

Years ago I got a call in the middle of the night from the local campus police. In a wind storm the antenna had broken on top of the electrical engineering building, where the university ham radio club had their shack. W9YT I think.

It turned out the mount for the rotator motor for a 20 M beam antenna had failed. The motor and beam were dangling a few feet below the top of a crank over tower; the coax had snagged on the mount or the whole thing would have come crashing down. The university had just spent $100,000 replacing that roof, and if we damaged it we were in real trouble (weren't even supposed to step off a walkway on that roof).

So we had to crank it down. But anybody who's used a crankover knows the big jerk you get after each tooth, and we had to stand directly under the motor. The motor and antenna were hung on the antenna coax which is plenty strong, but the connection was a barrel connector. Double SO-239, and two PL-259s? I no longer remember the numbers. Anyway, if that soldered connector let go, we'd trash the roof and probably one of us.

I asked the station engineer "who soldered that connector?" "Uh, you did." Oh crap. But the solder held and it came down fine.

Sorry for the off topic veer.