EZCAP BNC Connector Conversion
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- Published on Thursday, 09 August 2012 10:52
My first thought when I unpacked my EZCAP dongle was "what kind of connector is that?". The answer of course is that it is a PAL connector. Not common in the US for good reason and because of that I knew it had to go. I could have used one of the PAL to BNC adapters but I would have to order it and another adapter in the line would introduce at least a little loss. My latest dongle came from Nooelec on eBay and I took the opportunity to take some pictures of the conversion. You will need about 10 minutes, a soldering iron with enough power to melt all of the solder around the connector, solder sucker or wick, some hot glue (and gun), and an AMP 112408 - BNC Straight PCB Jack, Surface Mount, 50 Ohm or equivalent. I don't have any hard numbers to compare signal before and after the conversion, but the signal was markedly improved on the P25 signals I was monitoring. Loss in both cable and connectors is a concern when monitoring P25 in the 868MHz range. I now put the antenna directly on the dongle and mount it in a good spot for reception. I can then use a USB extension cable to get the data to my computer.
The EZCAP before I take the knife to it.