Stiletto Portable Antenna Cable - My Next PDF Document

me_rubin

Member
Oct 11, 2008
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Someone asked me, what I'm doing with the Portable Antenna Cable.


The main thing I've been doing is making it smaller.


It's going from this:
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To This:

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Finally down to this:

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The latest approach seems to be the best and the strongest to date.

I'm updating my old manual with this new approach.

What is different about this way is that instead of joining two pieces of coax cable, I take the SMB pigtail and solder it directly to the connector. Thus lowering the loss and giving me the ability to make it shorter.

It involves taking the connector apart
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Preparing the SMB connector

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Soldering it to the circuit board of the connector

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Replacing the Strain Relief with a rubber Grommet
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And Gluing it together.

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Look for another PDF in the coming weeks.


Don't you just love these projects?
 
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me_rubin

Member
Oct 11, 2008
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Me Rubin hao mosh fo de caebel? I nee wan to put me Stiletto 2 on me van. Gracias :)


Its a good thing that Google can translate this. "How Much for the cable? I need one for my Stiletto 2 on my Van."

When I sold them on Ebay, they sold for over a 100 bucks. Originally I built 12 for the SBS Forum members for 45 dollars shipped which included all the parts except for the headphone adapter cable.

Maybe when I finish my new PDF manual we can get a group of people over on the DRC and have another group build.
 

Sirius Smurf

New Member
Oct 14, 2008
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Thanks for your ingenuity with this. I have a STiletto 2 and normally when I rent a car I get a pre paid subscription card and take my starmate replay 2 with it. With this cable I will no longer need to do that. Let us know when you put another one on ebay, in my case it will pay for itself :)
 

me_rubin

Member
Oct 11, 2008
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Herndon, VA
Thanks for your ingenuity with this. I have a STiletto 2 and normally when I rent a car I get a pre paid subscription card and take my starmate replay 2 with it. With this cable I will no longer need to do that. Let us know when you put another one on ebay, in my case it will pay for itself :)


I hope to make the manual easy enough such that others will be able to make them too. I'm not in the business of making these cables so that is why I'd like to leverage my knowledge to others so that they can make them too!

Tell me about the Paid sub card. How long is the sub good for? Do you give them the ESN and then it works for the rental period?

Thanks for your interest.
 

robhurlburt

Well-Known Member
Oct 15, 2008
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excellent, can't wait for the new instructions, my headphoneantenna is starting to act finicky, and i am getting poor signal when i used to have great signal.

Which is better. A car antenna or a home antenna?
 
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me_rubin

Member
Oct 11, 2008
509
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Herndon, VA
You are not going to find them at your local radio shack if that is what you are asking. When I went to a Ham Fest over the summer I saw some for sale from Antenna vendors. or people who sell GPS's. But the best prices are those from eBay.
 

me_rubin

Member
Oct 11, 2008
509
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mike, could i hack this cable?

SMB Male Booster Connector Antenna for GPS Navigation - eBay (item 150304884302 end time Oct-26-08 17:39:06 PDT)

Edit:
found your same cable on ebay for $10, free shipping. I have one on order, maybe i can make somebody a cable with the extra smb i will have

05-00163 Twin SMB Coax Cable Coaxial Jumper Sirrus XM - eBay (item 360095027799 end time Nov-03-08 17:14:01 PST)


The second link (Testparts) is where I bought some before. They work well and solder nicely.

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You have to cut off the outer plastic cover and shield which covers the two pieces of coax. The center connector on this one is not solid so it works well in this application.

Best of all the price is right! I've made about 6 of the cables with this connector and no problems.
 

robhurlburt

Well-Known Member
Oct 15, 2008
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Just made this last night, here are some comments for future builders...

-the wires are tiny, and it takes some practice to not overheat them on the solder and melt some housing/shrinktube
-if you bunch up the outter braided shield, the end of it gets buched up a bit, and it makes it difficult to overlap the two shieds.
-my first one didn't work, so i just cut it again, and re-did it. 2nd time took me 10 mins to do.

Reception:
I mainly did this for work. It works, but I guess I'm not blown away. For some reason I thought it was going to be ALOT stronger. Before with the headphone antenna I had a strong 2 bars. With the home antenna i am getting a stong 2 bars, with a blinking third (terrestrial). It is an improvement, and I have a car antenna to play with also, so I will see how that goes.

All in all I appreciate the work Me_Rubin put into the document and am happy with the improvements. Thanks Mike!
 
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