Overheard a guy say he uses automotive butt connectors on coax and I nearly lost it

I was at a shop swapping parts yesterday and this older tech mentions he's been using non-solder crimp connectors meant for car wiring on antenna cables for years. He said it holds fine and saves time, but I had to walk away before I said something I'd regret. Signal loss and impedance mismatch are real things, right? I wouldn't trust that in a bird strike zone, let alone with a transponder feed. Anyone else run into sketchy field fixes that made you question everything?

3 comments

3 Comments

wendyprice1mo ago

Wait, has that guy ever actually tested his setup after one of those connectors got wet? I had a buddy who did something similar on his mobile radio and he ended up with so much signal loss he could barely hit the local repeater from his driveway. We spent a whole afternoon trying to track down his problem, and it was those cheap crimp connectors all along. The impedance was all over the place, and the connection would go intermittent every time it rained. It's one thing to save a few bucks on a garden hose repair, but on a transponder line for an aircraft? That's just asking for trouble. I totally get why you had to walk away, because seeing that kind of hack job in person just makes your skin crawl.

lily701mo ago

Totally feel your pain on that one, man.

ivanross1mo ago

Three times I've been through that exact thing with my truck this year. It's the worst feeling when you're already stressed and the car decides to add to it. My 2007 Ford had a transmission issue that cost me $1800 and I wanted to throw the whole truck in a lake. You're not alone in that frustration, man. It's one of those things where you just gotta take a breath and remember it's metal and oil, not the end of the world. Hang in there.