Working on Radios and Coax

[Deleted User 24012]

I do some basic repairs on radios. I don't know enough to be comfortable tuning them, but if something needs a part replaced and such I can do that. A buddy of mine wants to set up a radio at his house and in his vehicle. He brought me an old Cobra 21 WX today with a loose solder joint on the power connection so I repaired that. He had an 8 foot whip with some old coax that was grounded out (SWR of 3+). Figured out the problem was that it was single conductor coax, and the one wire had broken and poked through the insulator into the foil shielding. I just cut it back and re-did the PL259 connectors on both ends with fresh solder since they both looked kind of agey. Used my multimeter on the tone/ohms setting to verify that the conductor and shielding were both good all the way through, but that they didn't touch at any point.

Monitored the police scanner for road closures and such from the snow and been chatting on the CB radio.

[BruceBruce]

Good job Retro and thanks for the offer of parts replacement. I find coax to be one of the most important parts other than the antenna of course, I was able to get some times fiber communications FM-8 coax new old stock from a friend who has a spool of the stuff, it was discontinued in the 60's for some reason. it has a solid copper 10 gauge copper core and I absolutely love the stuff. It is a little stiff but good coax goes a long way!

[Mkymse1]

You are actually better off with stranded core stuff because that gives the electrons more area to travel, not to mention it is much more flexible. What a lot of people don't know is that electrons flow on the outside of the wire, not internally so the higher the strand count, the more conductive the wire will be.
Just an FYI.