Thanks for being ¡°that guy¡±. Not being aware of the difference can cause expensive damage, and it¡¯s one of my pet peeves.
The two connectors can mate, but the 3.5mm connector is made to much tighter tolerances. It also has an air dielectric. Mating to a poorly made (or badly abused) SMA can wreck a 3.5mm connector¡¯s ability to maintain low SWR all the way out to its TEM limit. Permanent damage can be done by a single connect-disconnect cycle.
I have sacrificial connector savers on all of my expensive gear, but occasionally a student will remove them ¡ª against the rules ¡ª to shorten a path or because they think the savers are introducing some artifacts. If they then connect a random SMA cable to the gear, those students have their lab access cards deactivated pretty quickly.
¡ª°ä³ó±ð±ð°ù²õ
Tom
Sent from my iThing, so please forgive typos and brevity.
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On Jan 31, 2021, at 1:42 PM, snapdiode via groups.io <snapdiode@...> wrote:
?Well, not to be "that guy", but the SD-24 uses 3.5mm connectors... Compatible with SMA but not the same.
And I would just like to add that I have a S-52 which makes me *almost* as cool.
