this post was submitted on 22 Mar 2026
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You haven’t ever made your own cable?
I have, just not SMA, crimped or otherwise.
if you have settled on that as a standard connector, you can make a good buy out of 50m of LMR240UF, a crimping tool frame, die set matching the cable/connector, and 10 packs of Amphenol SMA connectors.
You might get both male and female SMA since female will match a lot of handheld radios, and you can make “extension cords” with one end male and the other female, and you can mount the female ones through a hole in an enclosure or feedthrough plate.
It’s also nice to have a few UHF/PL259 and N connectors - invariably you will have some equipment with them.
Then you would be equipped to make exactly the right length cables with exactly the right connectors and known high-quality materials.
Over the years I've made a great many coax leads, the bulk of which were Quad Shield RG6 terminated with F-tyoe compression fittings.
Even with such high volume of manufacturing, 75Ω satellite connections, the variation was so high that it was hit and miss to have a good day or not when you terminated these whilst standing on a roof next to a satellite dish.
In that time, I learnt that it's cheaper and safer to pay for factory terminated coax.
Ditto with UTP and RJ45.
I still have all the tools, but will really only use them for emergencies.
I respect that others want to terminate their own leads, but it's rare that I have such an urge. There's still plenty of coax and UTP lying in my garage, but I'm pretty sure that it will outlive me.