At 12:44 7/11/99 -0400, Caston/Payne wrote:
>From: Caston/Payne <happycampers@picusnet.com>
>
>I'm going to replace the ground connectors on the left head next week and
>was wondering if any particular brand was better than another for this
>application? Should I look for copper or will aluminum sufice?

You certainly want copper (or brass, but you probably won't find any brass
ring terminals, just the push-on ones).  As far as I know there is no such
thing as an aluminum crimp connector.  The matte-silver ones are tin-plated
which is good.  If you should run across a shiny-silver one it might be
chrome-plated, which is bad IMO.  I would tend to stick with 3M if you
don't feel up to judging quality yourself.

>  Will the
>types found at the local FLAPS be ok?

Yes, subject to the above.

>With regard to the ground strap on the left head:would like to replace that
>as well. What gauge wire and any special temp for the sheathing to look for?

Hate to say it, but you should use tin-plated (or tinned) copper braid,
just like the original.  I can make you up one for a few bucks if
necessary.  They used braid 1) because it's very flexible for the
(equivalent) size of wire -- ordinary 8-gauge stranded wire could very well
break in time and 2) because of a property of radio waves, they tend to
travel only on the surface of a conductor.  The braid has a very large
outer surface compared to equivalent wire, which makes it much superior as
an RF ground.  Side note: it's the outer surface of the braid that counts,
not of each individual strand.  There's some really fancy (and tedious)
stuff called Litz wire which is a braided wire with each individual strand
enameled to insulate it from all the rest which tricks the RF into
traveling on the surface of each strand instead of the whole wire, but this
is just tinned braid.

david
David Beierl - dbeierl@ibm.net