WB6JNN provides us with more lab data showing the response of the UHF Connector with respect to the N and BNC.
Nice job especially with the use of isolating pads inline.
This agrees well with my lab measurements of these connectors plus TNC and SMA. Of particular note is the test of the BNC where you can see the behavior improve at the higher frequencies where, I suggest, the BNC adapter is a half-wave long.
Someone on Reddit suggests my tests may be faulty…
“Something fishy here, ALL manufacturers of HAM equipment use the connectors listed. Asking whether we should be using them is quite ridiculous as they are fitted to all our HAM stuff. WHat do we do – chop it off?
Why do we buy oil products? Because we want fuel for our lives. Why do we buy radios with UHF connectors? Because hams want to maintain a standard HF connector for our hobby and we aren’t demanding a change (Europe is however). The radio manufacturers give us what we want… and we want to hold on to the idea the U in UHF connector really means frequencies above 300 MHz, when it is well established UHF meant frequencies above 30 MHz when the connector came about.
The Reddit user continues…
Unless there is a white paper to back it up, Id say it was not Scientific. It wont make 1 S point difference in practical terms. No mention was made of age of connectors tested (extremely relevant) or make.”
I argue my “white paper” are collectively these four posts:
- pretty-lousy-pl-259-connectors-the-test.html
- pl259-so239-return-loss-attenuation-test.html
- lab-tests-sma-bnc-tnc-and-n-connectors.html
- uhf-connector-test-results.html
I did mention the make and model of a couple of the connectors, Amphenol is one, but I do admit the sampling size is quite small. Still it’s pretty clear of all the UHF connectors (red graph traces) in my test, not a one beat the BNC, TNC, SMA or N (blue graph traces).
Perhaps the Reddit poster has a point. If I combine the above four articles into one, format a bit, and print them on white paper, then maybe great blessings will flow down from heaven and change perception of the very same data.
I leave it to the fine readers of this site to determine if my, and WB6JNN’s, test were “scientific” enough to counter the “UHF Connector is loss-less above 100 MHz” dogma from certain factions.
