this post was submitted on 11 Apr 2025
92 points (95.1% liked)

Science Memes

14439 readers
1731 users here now

Welcome to c/science_memes @ Mander.xyz!

A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.



Rules

  1. Don't throw mud. Behave like an intellectual and remember the human.
  2. Keep it rooted (on topic).
  3. No spam.
  4. Infographics welcome, get schooled.

This is a science community. We use the Dawkins definition of meme.



Research Committee

Other Mander Communities

Science and Research

Biology and Life Sciences

Physical Sciences

Humanities and Social Sciences

Practical and Applied Sciences

Memes

Miscellaneous

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 
top 11 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] Geodad@lemm.ee 11 points 3 weeks ago

That was us on the right tail when I was in the Army. Several billion dollar defense budget, and the troops have old, outdated, broken equipment.

[–] mmddmm@lemm.ee 9 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

On gold connectors... Are you afraid your signal will reflect back into the antenna? Do people really do that?

But yeah, also you can make sure it resonates on the correct frequency by mechanically adjusting it and looking for the feedback.

[–] Zorsith@lemmy.blahaj.zone 12 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

AFAIK gold on connectors is for anticorrosion purposes. Not particularly useful for say, a gaming mouse, but for an outdoor antenna i can see the use case.

[–] neidu3@sh.itjust.works 13 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

Gold connectors are a waste of money. Regular N or PL259 are fine, just cover them with a little acid free dielectric grease. Outside for anti-corrosion, inside for anti-seizing. Wrap it with vulcanizing rubber tape, add some regular vinyl tape just to keep it in place until it sets. Do this properly and it will last for years, even in sideways sea-spray.

I've seen some people use heatshrink hoses for this, but it's not as good and a pain in the ass to remove once you need to service the connection.

Source: The amount of ships' antennae I've installed with cable termination is in the hundreds. Maybe even over a thousand.

[–] einfach_orangensaft@sh.itjust.works 2 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

i am wondering, since signals are AC in nature, it should be possible to coat connectors in a super super thin layer of polymer (anti corrosion) and it should still work, it would increase the capacitive resistance tho

[–] mmddmm@lemm.ee 3 points 3 weeks ago

Frequency-dependent connectors could work, but would be seriously counter-intuitive to work with.

[–] neidu3@sh.itjust.works 8 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

No need for expensive coax. Rg214 is both great and reasonably priced, and even that is probably overdoing it. As for the antenna, if you have a balun, trash will do just fine - just make sure it's the correct amount/length of trash for the frequency you're working with, but I'm sure rg58 would've been fine too.

Source: I used the gutters on my previous house to listen in on maritime HF DSC transmissions from around the world. I used a moderately expensive cable, though, as I happened to have a bunch of leftovers at work I could just take.

[–] lvxferre@mander.xyz 6 points 3 weeks ago

That reminds me, that in the 90s it was really common to put steel wool on the TV antenna. At least in my chunk of Latin America.

Digital TV is killing our culture!! /s

[–] 5in1k@lemm.ee 4 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

I just recently built an off center dipole from aluminum tubes that were scrapped from projector mounts that I screwed to a 2x4. It’s like 7’ ish feet tall.

[–] allywilson@lemmy.ml 1 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)
[–] 5in1k@lemm.ee 3 points 3 weeks ago

Play with a SDR on my computer.