Hi Mike,
You wrote to Scott Huffman:
MB> SH> Gold plated connectors are always best to use, if you want
MB> SH> to part with the  few additional dollars required to buy
MB> SH> them. However, the benefits of gold are vastly overrated and
MB> SH> the difference is very miniscule. Only reason you would need
MB> SH> them is if you absolutely insisted in having the very best
MB> SH> set-up  you can and you wanted to minimize losses,
MB> SH> especially on longer runs.
MB>The principal benefit to gold plate is immunity from
MB>corrosion.  This is essentially unimportant in networking,
MB>where currents are negligible.  In audio, for example, you
MB>might commonly pass tens of amps to a speaker, and
MB>corrosion would form a high-resistance spot which would
MB>heat up.
From my experience in designing high reliability engine/transmission
control systems for military applications (everything from milivolt to
several amps on the connectors), the advantage of gold is indeed
immunity to corrosion, but only during storage! Once a properly designed
connector has been mated the existance of the gold plate becomes
irrelevant.
You have the benefit of gold against current the wrong way round!
The higher the current, the less relevant the gold plate becomes (when a
high power connector is mated the two mateing parts should distort and
cut through the gold plate with the working contact being between the
underlying connector materials)
MB> SH> The only real governing factors with connectors which
MB> SH> determine loss, is the connector type itself (which for LAn
MB> SH> set-ups is usually fixed, but some of the old hands and pros
MB> SH> sometimes choose to install all new different types of
MB> SH> connectors in their set-up, these connectors having lower
MB> SH> losses than traditional types. the type of connector also
MB> SH> has a bearing on how much reflection you would get from the
MB> SH> discontinuity of the connector. Whether the  plug was gold,
MB> SH> nickel plated, etc.. makes little difference in terms of
MB> SH> reflected signals.
MB>Connectors of proper design should not introduce impedance 
scontinuities.
Hear hear. But how many can verify if the BNC connector is 50 or 75
ohms? (and even if they can, how many bother?)
George
 * SLMR 2.1a * A mainframe: The biggest PC peripheral available.
--- Maximus/2 3.01
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