I was getting a little worried about how the SMA connector on the Icom IC-R5 was dealing with being connected and disconnected from the antenna at home. I take the R5 with me everywhere and once I get home it goes on the desk and gets plugged into the collinear on the roof which has a BNC connector. I do have a SMA – BNC adaptor but it looks a bit naff on the radio. I did a quick Ebay search and came up with a black SMA – BNC that I could leave connected permanently. Now I can use at home and also use with some of the wide array of BNC terminated whips/handy antennas that I have.
Here it is with the old adaptor..
And the new…
Much better.