Antenna Cable Banana Plug Attachment - Help!

[t6dpilot]

Dual post with one on PP.

I have a 71T in which I have installed a period Blaupunkt Frankfurt. I have everything ready to go except that the original Hirschmann antenna cable had the banana plug (that plugs into the back of the radio) come detached. I figured, no big deal, just solder it back on. Well, what a PITA this is! The cable consists of four different materials: outer layer is grey rubber, next layer is the braided shielding, next layer is a hard plastic tube that encases and protects the inner most hair sized wire. The wire is soldered into the male end of the banana plug, which is pretty easy. The plug has four petals, two of which are longer and those two are soldered to the braided steel layer.

This is the difficult part. To solder the petals to the braided steel, you need to heat up both materials to allow solder to flow properly. No brainer right? Wrong! For some reason, I cannot get the braided material hot enough for the solder to flow between the two and bond. A side benefit of trying to transfer all this heat is that the plastic tubing that is inside the braided steel (remember that?) friggin' melts.

Has anyone accomplished this task that can give me some tips to get this accomplished? I really would like to get this radio to work just for fun. Thanks.

[SubieSeven]

Scott-

Here's my solution, used successfully- hard to describe though ! Also not beautiful or original, but functional.

Get a short antenna extension cable, 12" or so (auto parts, Radio Shack) cut off the female end, leaving the desired male end and the attached cable.

On the new cable and the old antenna cable, carefully remove about 1" to 1.5" of the outer insulation with a sharp razor blade, exposing the woven shield material.

CAREFULLY slit the shield about.25" near the end of the outer insulation, and work the center conductor (inside it's tubing) out through this opening.

You now have the center conductor, within it's tubing next to the woven shield. Again, CAREFULLY expose the center conductor by cutting the tube about 1/2 of the exposed length.

When both cables are prepared as above, and laid out "facing" each other carefully inter-twine the center conductors, leaving about .25" exposed between the two pieces of tubing. Solder the center conductor, butt the tubing together and tape (or heat shrink- back up one step!) the tubing together.

Straighten the woven shield into a single 'conductor" and lay it parallel to the center conductor. Twist the shields together and solder (again, prepare heat shrink first if you prefer that to tape) Tape the shield.

Now is the best time to test the connection for proper reception. If it's OK, tape or heat shrink the whole affair and you're done.

Steve

[t6dpilot]

Hey thanks! I might give that a try. Sounds like a much better solution than fooling with it like I have.