Joining audio coax cable

I need some help on the above please. I have connected my Sky digibox
to my PC and use these to record concerts from radio 3 Recently I
noticed that I was getting clicks on the recording so my first thought
was that the cable connexions between PC and digibox might be at
fault. The dual coaxial cable is in 2 lengths connected together using
phonoplugs. I have great difficulty in soldering these plugs and fear
that there may be a slight short in one of them resulting in these
clicks. I am thinking of cutting these joining plugs out all together
and connecting each dual coaxial cable to its follow on partner using
ordinary solder and some ordinary electrical insulation tape - the
black stuff. Would this be acceptable or must I use phono plugs to
join the two lengths of cable. Any advice would be appreciated.

In article , Mick
wrote:
I need some help on the above please. I have connected my Sky digibox to
my PC and use these to record concerts from radio 3 Recently I noticed
that I was getting clicks on the recording so my first thought was that
the cable connexions between PC and digibox might be at fault. The dual
coaxial cable is in 2 lengths connected together using phonoplugs. I
have great difficulty in soldering these plugs and fear that there may
be a slight short in one of them resulting in these clicks.

I have my doubts that a slight short would produce clicks unless you are
flexing the cables at the time. If you wiggle the connectors, or where the
cables enter them, vigorously whilst listening, do you then hear lots of
clicks, or breaks in the signal? If giving the connectors/cables and
enthusiastic massage like this does not generate clicks, then the
connections may not be the source of the trouble.

I don't record to a PC. However if you are doing this, then I understand
tha clicks can sometimes occur due to unreliable sampling by the soundcard
and computer.

For the above reasons I don't immediately place the connections as the main
suspect on the basis of what you say.

I am thinking of cutting these joining plugs out all together and
connecting each dual coaxial cable to its follow on partner using
ordinary solder and some ordinary electrical insulation tape - the black
stuff. Would this be acceptable or must I use phono plugs to join the
two lengths of cable. Any advice would be appreciated.

You can solder coax directly to co-ax. However this exposes the inner as
you now have a short unshielded section. This may make the system more
prone to picking up clicks, or hum, or other interference. If your clicks
are due to interference you may therefore find this does not solve the
problem. You can wrap braid or metal tape, but even this may not work well
unless done with care.

Why not buy some longer lengths of cable so that you can have new
connectors that do not require one cable to connect to another in series?

I don't know what cables/connectors you have been using. However my own
eyesight is certainly much poorer than it used to be, even with reading
glasses. Despite this, I use some of the 'satellite' UHF co-ax from Maplin,
and the gold-plated larger diameter phonos. I find these quite easy to fit.
The inner is soldered into a hole in the center-pin with a solder bucker
and side-hole, and the braid is fitted under a collet. This arrangement
seems to me to be very easy to fit given the correct cable size. It also
works quite nicely for audio in my experience even in runs a number of
metres long.

Slainte,

Jim

--
Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm
Audio Misc http://www.st-and.demon.co.uk/AudioMisc/index.html
Armstrong Audio http://www.st-and.demon.co.uk/Audio/armstrong.html
Barbirolli Soc. http://www.st-and.demon.co.uk/JBSoc/JBSoc.html

Joining COAX with PHONO PLUGS ? are you mad ?! Get coax connectors and use a
barrell connector to do the join.

The clicks could be from the coax or it could be from clipping.

--
Nathan D Higgins

Website: http://nathan.link9.net/
Email: nathan[at]link9[dot]net
Hosting: http://www.link9.net
WAP: http://wap.link9.net
MSN: nathan[at]link9[dot]net

Hi,

In message , Mick
writes
I need some help on the above please. I have connected my Sky digibox
to my PC and use these to record concerts from radio 3 Recently I
noticed that I was getting clicks on the recording so my first thought
was that the cable connexions between PC and digibox might be at
fault. The dual coaxial cable is in 2 lengths connected together using
phonoplugs. I have great difficulty in soldering these plugs and fear
that there may be a slight short in one of them resulting in these
clicks. I am thinking of cutting these joining plugs out all together
and connecting each dual coaxial cable to its follow on partner using
ordinary solder and some ordinary electrical insulation tape - the
black stuff. Would this be acceptable or must I use phono plugs to
join the two lengths of cable. Any advice would be appreciated.

Is there a reason why you couldn't just get a longer cable? Maplin had
them up to 10 metres last time I looked, for a bit over 10 quid. You can
probably get them for less if you look around. Try www.cpc.co.uk, they
have a huge stock of audio cables. You probably need a 3.5mm
jack at the soundcard end and two phono males at the digibox - a very
common configuration these days.

You could just solder and tape them, but it's a bit of a messy solution
and you'll lose the shielding over that length of the cable (probably
not an issue if there isn't a lot of electrical noise around, but still
not desirable). You don't need phono plugs as such - they are just a
means of keeping electrical contact between the two cables.

Incidentally, are you getting the clicks on both channels? If so, your
problem may well be elsewhere. It seems unlikely that both cable
channels would drop out at the same time unless there is some physical
intervention.

--
Regards,
Glenn Booth

In article ,
Mick wrote:
I have great difficulty in soldering these plugs and fear
that there may be a slight short in one of them resulting in these
clicks.

With a bog standard phono plug or line socket it helps to bend the screen
connection out of the way and solder the centre wire first.

--
*The fact that no one understands you doesn't mean you're an artist

Dave Plowman London SW 12
RIP Acorn

On Wed, 02 Jul 2003 15:27:13 GMT, "Nathan Higgins"
-spam wrote:

Joining COAX with PHONO PLUGS ? are you mad ?! Get coax connectors and use a
barrell connector to do the join.

The clicks could be from the coax or it could be from clipping.


Using phono plugs at low frequency is ok. Even some cheap HF radios
use them for antenna connections. Most interconnects are co-axial, as
they decrease the effect of electrical feilds creating noise on the
signal wire.

I need some help on the above please. I have connected my Sky digibox
to my PC and use these to record concerts from radio 3 Recently I
noticed that I was getting clicks on the recording so my first thought
was that the cable connexions between PC and digibox might be at
fault. The dual coaxial cable is in 2 lengths connected together using
phonoplugs. I have great difficulty in soldering these plugs and fear
that there may be a slight short in one of them resulting in these
clicks. I am thinking of cutting these joining plugs out all together
and connecting each dual coaxial cable to its follow on partner using
ordinary solder and some ordinary electrical insulation tape - the
black stuff. Would this be acceptable or must I use phono plugs to
join the two lengths of cable. Any advice would be appreciated.


A bad connection would typically crackle or cut out, not click.

Clicks on audio recorded to a computer are typically caused by
problems with the computer setup, and are very common on systems using
consumer-level sound cards and not set up specifically for audio. A
shared IRQ between soundcard and another device is a frequent culprit.

Distortion from a momentary digital overload (caused by feeding too
hot a signal into the computer) might also be described as a 'click'.

Thanks all for your advice. I have replaced the cable with one through
length and persuaded a friend to do the soldering. No improvement. These
clicks are random and occur on either one or both channels. The cable is not
touched during recording, in fact the computer isn't either. The clicks are
easy to edit out but this takes an age and I was hoping that replacing the
cable would alleviate the problem The last recording I made was of a 1953
performance and it may have been that the clicks were inherent in the
recording although I doubt it. With regard to shared IRQ, I'm not sure what
that means but IRQ9 on my computer is shared with an ALi PCI to USB Open
Host Controller. !! This is really beyond me but could this be the problem.
If so then I think that I shall just leave it since it sounds incredibly
complicated for a thickie like myself. I would like to know though. The USB
connections on my Pc are used for my printer and my scanner neither of
which are in used when I record music. Thanks again.




"Dave Plowman" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Mick wrote:
I have great difficulty in soldering these plugs and fear
that there may be a slight short in one of them resulting in these
clicks.

With a bog standard phono plug or line socket it helps to bend the screen
connection out of the way and solder the centre wire first.

--
*The fact that no one understands you doesn't mean you're an artist

Dave Plowman London SW 12
RIP Acorn

Thanks all for your advice. I have replaced the cable with one through
length and persuaded a friend to do the soldering. No improvement. These
clicks are random and occur on either one or both channels. The cable is not
touched during recording, in fact the computer isn't either. The clicks are
easy to edit out but this takes an age and I was hoping that replacing the
cable would alleviate the problem The last recording I made was of a 1953
performance and it may have been that the clicks were inherent in the
recording although I doubt it. With regard to shared IRQ, I'm not sure what
that means but IRQ9 on my computer is shared with an ALi PCI to USB Open
Host Controller. !! This is really beyond me but could this be the problem.
If so then I think that I shall just leave it since it sounds incredibly
complicated for a thickie like myself. I would like to know though. The USB
connections on my Pc are used for my printer and my scanner neither of
which are in used when I record music. Thanks again.

Go into Device Manager and disable the USB controllers. If this cures
the clicks, either disable these devices before each audio session, or
come back here and ask what to do to solve the problem properly.