I learned my lesson this past weekend, when I bought some antenna mount brackets to use for antenna mast mounts in the bed of my truck. I really didn't need the antenna to coax connectors, but they came with it. I thought it would be nice to have them in case another got damaged. Well I specifically asked the seller on eBay to make sure they were identical, to me symmetry is very important on certain things. Here's the problem, 2 brackets were slightly different and of cheaper, thinner construction. One of those was coated in some sort of silver paint and the other was rougher on the edges. The quality two were of thicker finished aluminum. But the thing that bugs me the most is the connectors supplied with them, 3 of them had a brass center conductor and I assume the other metal used for them is plated brass. The 4th one was aluminum inside and out, I would never put an aluminum connector on a vehicle, nor would I ever use one that had the same metal for the center conductor. If I lived in a area with salty air, aluminum against brass is a no no for conductors, or so I have been told. All of them would screw into a cheaper Radio Shack coax cable, but 3 of them would not screw into a quality connector like the cables I bought a while back from a Ham supply. 3 of them had nylon spacer washers and one of them had some strange off white washer that clearly isn't Nylon, Ive used these before and they do not last in the elements, within a year or two they can become brittle and break out and then you got problems if it happens when you are transmitting while runnin down the road.
Lesson learned- Bill
Lesson learned- Bill