An article about all the different types of Coax Connectors
Over on Hackaday author Jenny List has written a useful article that shows and discusses many of the various types of coax cable connectors that exist in the radio world. Over the years many different types of coaxial cable connectors have appeared and it is often difficult to know which of them is the best for your application.
Jenny first explains a bit about the impedance theory behind the design of coax connectors, before going on to introduce several coax connectors starting from the Belling-Lee connector which first came about back in the 1920’s and ending at the more modern SMA and MCX connectors. She then goes on to discuss how you should choose an appropriate coax connector for your application.
Sometime around the year 2000, SMA connectors became much more common in ham radio gear, largely because everything that was already small (HT radios largely) suddenly got even smaller. And if you ever forget what an SMA looks like, just remember it is the first three letters of “SMALL.”
Prior to that BNC seemed to be most common in HTs and police scanners. I kind of miss them because they are way stronger than SMAs.
Recently I have been using F connectors a lot. I’m using 75 ohm for receive applications more. Also been doing a lot of experimenting. Nothing beats a twist-on F connector for rapid prototyping and experimenting. Want to try using coax stubs for notching? Grab an F.
Found the answer to the horrible, difficult to read grey text bs, nosquint for firefox, now I can read this bloody site….