Plugs confusion

 Plugs, plugs, plugs

How many of us have this problem? Main stream amateur equipment has no standard plug. The choices seem to be PL259, N Type, BNC or SMA. OK they all have their advantages and disadvantages. The tendency is to use PL259 for higher powers up to 1GHz, though the N Type is often preferred. Then BNC are frequent for smaller equipments and lower powers, and finally SMA which are used for all frequencies as "mount on the PCB" interfaces like most board SDRs.

But this confusion does not help in the shack, does it. And you end up with tons of convertors like this

PL259s, SMAs, BNCs joiners and convertors

And if you play around a lot with the configurations in your shack, as I do, you find yourself forever searching for cables and convertors and screwing and unscrewing SMAs.

So enough is enough. I have decided to standardise on BCN, because its quick and easy to plug and unplug. I have bought the right cables and/or convertors for my QRP Labs U3S I use for WSPR, my ELAD FDM-DUO the main SSB/DIgital modes transceiver, and my new (not so sure about) Xiegu G1M transceiver. Then of course there is my NanoVNA with SMA which I use to tune up my loop antenna. I have included an SMA output from my antenna switcher just for this and use an SMA-SMA cable... was this wise, I don't know.

Antenna switcher

This is a very simple switch, far from coaxial! Just a 4-way rotary in a small box.

Antenna out and transceivers in BNC

SMA out to NanoVNA

End up

Now I need to buy a bunch more BNC/BNC cables. On the common web sites these come is very limited lengths, so take care.