"Peter Parry" wrote in message
...

No, any one of the proper RF connectors, TNC, BNC even FME would be a
vast improvement on either of the apologies for a plug that you
mentioned.

No they wouldn't - anyway getting them in 75 ohm versions and sizes to fit
the foam and 5-cell dielectric cables used in the TV distribution world
would be difficult.

I disagree fundamentally with your premise. The Type-F connector is an
example of good engineering, in that it achieves (or can achieve) excellent
performance at very low cost. It _is_ a proper RF connector. Perhaps
you've only encountered the cheapest nastiest sort. Take a look at the 'F'
series products offered by companies like Cabelcon (Denmark), Gilbert (USA),
PPC (USA), Tratec (Netherlands) and others.

Good crimp F-connectors give excellent screening factors (90 dB+) and can
provide excellent impedance matching ( 20 dB return loss to above 2 GHz).
The fact that, for the smaller cable sizes, the cable inner conductor acts
as the centre pin of the plug means that the male side of the connection
inherently provides a good impedance match and cost is minimised. Matching
performance is primarily determined by the internal design of the female
connector, which is usually part of equipment. There are two principal
types of inner contact design in use - the original flat leaf spring type,
which are generally OK up to 860 MHz (top of the UHF TV band) and the round
cage jack type which are suitable for use up to 2 GHz + (top of the
satellite first IF band).

You do need to be very careful when choosing adapters between F and other
connector series, some of which display very poor return losses (high SWR)
and others of which are OK.

The 'F' interface is quite respectable - it's standardised in IEC 60169-24
and Agilent supply a calibration kit (85039B) characterised up to 3 GHz for
use with their vector network analysers:
http://we.home.agilent.com/USeng/nav...880331/pd.html.

--
Andy