Joe Lorento
1 posts
Registered:
14 Jun 2021
14 Jun 2021
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A lot of existing fixtures have a generous clearance hole or slot for the
connector. We should really be cognizant of this area of the fixture; an
oversized clearance hole can result in increased loading/deflection in the
connector area. It can also affect the cable egress and cause eccentric
loading on the connector. Often times this mounting scheme does not match
the customer arrangement, thus we are not “testing as you fly”.
For future designs, we should ask the customer about their
mounting scheme, especially the connector thru hole. Occasionally this
information is not available when we design fixtures, if that is the case we
should give our antennas the best chance to succeed and minimize the clearance
hole as much as possible. This will be an important consideration when
evaluating the mass of the cable and the p-clamp location. There will
inevitably be unique mounting schemes where this cannot be easily achieved, but
is an important thing to consider moving forward. Recently customer
cables have gotten heavier and more rigid while the environments have gotten
more extreme, thus we should evolve our best practices when designing test
fixtures.
It is important for us all to be aligned and give our
antennas the best chance for success.