Old Coax?

I used to solder ours. And I used brush on flux to make sure it was as good as it could be. If you are having trouble soldering it, try using liquid flux. Works wonders. But...hardly any A&P solders. They don't seem to know how. Avionics guys usuallycan though.

Ive seen statistics from people who have taken the trouble to really count them, and some 70% of electronics problems are connectors. I concur.
 
In the Army and in the early part of my career, I did LOTS of soldering, before getting into the software side of things. Resin core solder for electrical work seems to be the key as far as the solder portion of one of these connectors goes. The real key to having a good BNC connector installation though is stripping to the correct length and trimming the shield properly while making darn sure that you don't leave a strand of the shield shorting to the center conductor.

I think you're correct about connectors being a big source of trouble. On radar there were many BNC connectors and they may very well have been as much as 70% of our trouble depending upon how you tallied the data.

IF the factory splitter works for the GS and marker beacon, I'm going to make a new jumper for VOR2. I intentionally left the original one in place to see if there would be any difference in reception. It is the only coax cable left untouched in the original splitter layout.

If the original splitter gets the job done, the advantage to it is fewer BNC's to give trouble. If I have to cable up the remote splitter and add a separate marker beacon antenna, it will add SIX BNC's, meaning six additional possible points of failure.
 
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Well, between work, catching cold and trying to find the right weather, I FINALLY got a chance to fly to KGYI to check the NAVs.

I flew toward the marker and before I reached it, the glide slope and localizer picked up a good signal. I flew toward the needles with no trouble and just as I got centered I went over the marker, but got no light or audio from the marker beacon. I knew from Foreflight that I did indeed fly directly over the marker.

My next step is to go ahead and use the new to me splitter for NAV and GS. I will also add the marker beacon antenna that I bought. It is a stainless antenna that came out
from under an early Cessna 310. I have read that splitting the marker beacon signal off of the NAV antenna is a really tough thing to do, so I will add the dedicated marker beacon antenna and go from there.

To the old coax, which was what began the thread, I have proven that the old coax and the antenna can serve quite well for the glide slope and NAV use.

I now get to use my ground down 3/8 wrench several times to make up the short cable for connecting up the splitter.

Thanks for the help. It has helped me to move along toward a total solution.

BTW, I also cleaned the antenna connections for the Com's and they are also working well.
 
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