Very interesting. Did you make this part yourself? It looks like you just screw it in.
If you mass produce them, I'll take one!
He milled off the collar around the SMA connector. IMO it's a bad idea for several reasons:
- There is no standard for how far a SMA connector is supposed to protrude from the retaining nut or the radio case. So no matter how much of the collar you shave off, you're going to have fitment issues with some SMA antennas. Some will expect the connector to protrude more, and some less.
- BNC is standardized in that regard, so any correctly manufactured BNC antenna will fit on a BNC connector.
- BNC connectors are designed to handle more connect/disconnect cycles before wearing out than SMA connectors.
- BNC connectors are stronger than SMA connectors, and less likely to break if you drop the radio.
- Using an adapter shifts the wear of changing antennas to the adapter. If the adapter wears out, changing it is equivalent to one SMA antenna swap. That decreases wear on the SMA connector by a factor of 1000 or more.
- A properly designed SDS100 BNC adapter uses the collar for support, transferring much of the impact stress if you drop the radio to the case instead of the SMA connector. That is the biggest problem with the factory adapter.
Any connector will wear out eventually. BNC takes longer because its a straight push/pull to (dis)connect rather than turning multiple rotations. The nubs on the outside of the BNC female aren't for electrical contact; they are for mechanical locking only. The electrical contact is made with the petals on the male connector engaging the inner surface of the outer tube of the female.And by the way, I have old hand-held wide-band receivers that have worn out BNCs. The bottom of the nubs is halfway gone. I wonder if there is more surface area contact of the fine threads of the male SMA vs. bottom of the BNC nubs, just curious. I don't swap antennas much on this receiver, so it is not much of a concern for me, but that's not to say it is the best solution for others.
I do like your low-profile SMA to BNC adapter and will purchase one.
No extra parts, just enlarged the clearance so a standard-sized SMA antenna would fit. I live within two miles of the 100-watt tower, and don't really need an antenna at all, anything with gain overloads the poor thing. I just like the slim battery and low-profile antenna convenience. It doesn't get knocked anymore.
I actually have an old one without the text on the side, this replaced it. It worked great for me on upper 800 MHz but not as well as the Diamond SRFH10 on VHF. I also didn’t like the way the Uniden-supplied SMA to BNC looked with it, but I see Jon’s looks nicer.It sounds like you would be a good candidate for the comet CH - 32 miracle baby. It has a recessed BNC and I don't think it's longer than 3 in. It's supposed to be a tri-band but frankly it only works on 7 - 800 megahertz and UHF 2. Very low profile and would look cool on your radio. Look it up if you don't already know it.
It sounds like you would be a good candidate for the comet CH - 32 miracle baby. It has a recessed BNC and I don't think it's longer than 3 in. It's supposed to be a tri-band but frankly it only works on 7 - 800 megahertz and UHF 2. Very low profile and would look cool on your radio. Look it up if you don't already know it.
He milled off the collar around the SMA connector. IMO it's a bad idea for several reasons:
It's actually fairly common to need washers or spacers between the antenna and radio to get SMA antennas to fit right. As to the rest of your comments, ...This is coming from a guy that drills a hole out of the back of scanners and removes the belt clip to add GPS. LOL
I mean this in a funny way!
I think it's a nice mod to a poorly designed SMA connector. There many HT radios that have SMA connectors and never require any special adapters and been around for many years.
A Miracle Baby is the radio equivalent of earplugs. It's fine in strong-signal environments where a paper clip is adequate to get good reception, but is not appropriate for general use. It's like walking around wearing earplugs--appropriate in a room with noisy machines, but generally a dumb thing to do otherwise.Yes I agree. The Comet CH-32 is one of my all time favorites. Some swear at it, but I swear by it. All the technical guys with thousand invested in high end analyzers will chime in on how it can't work well but I've been using it for decades on numerous radios and for me and my needs it works great!
Most other antennas will give you 10-20dB more signal than a miracle baby, which is usually preferable.
No, it's because people are trying to use receivers not designed for simulcast to receive simulcast signals.Those antennas you speak of is why so many people have difficulty with 800 MHz simulcast systems.
In those instances the fewer antenna sites you receive the better. Not all situations call for a bigger higher gain antenna when in fact that's what contributing to the problem.
It's not smart if the odds of success are less than 25%. Stupid simulcast antenna tricks fail more often than they succeed, are only useful in fixed locations, and bork reception for anything else you may want to monitor. Would you recommend a cancer treatment if it only didn't kill you 25% of the time?Like I said the CH-32 works great for me! Just because something does not work well for you does not make it a dumb thing for others to do if it works and solves their problem. Oh yea before you say "If you buy a SDS you won't have simulcast problems" we knew that already I have one. If someone can solve simucast problems on their less expensive scanner for $25 I'd say it's a very smart thing to do!
It's actually fairly common to need washers or spacers between the antenna and radio to get SMA antennas to fit right. As to the rest of your comments, ...
Yes Jon, this is a conversation amongst very seasoned, experienced people who are familiar with the miracle baby for decades.A Miracle Baby is the radio equivalent of earplugs. It's fine in strong-signal environments where a paper clip is adequate to get good reception, but is not appropriate for general use. It's like walking around wearing earplugs--appropriate in a room with noisy machines, but generally a dumb thing to do otherwise.
Most other antennas will give you 10-20dB more signal than a miracle baby, which is usually preferable.
Would you recommend a cancer treatment if it only didn't kill you 25% of the time?
No, it's because people are trying to use receivers not designed for simulcast to receive simulcast signals.
In some cases that's all they can afford and if trentbob and myself pass along to others what works for us and it can possibly help them what's the harm in that? For many of us that's half the fun with our radio hobby, experimentation, trying different things that deviate from the norm and achieving success!