I throw the PL-259s away and use a silver plated PL259 instead. The center
insulation is better, and it takes solder easily. The factory connector is
very difficult to solder and is the cause of many owner installed
intermittent in a marine environment.

I second that! I've thrown literally hundreds of Shakespeare PL-259's
away. I felt bad, but a silver plated one with Teflon dielectric were so
much easier to solder!

The Shakespeares could be soldered on a windy day if a small, three
cornered file was used to take off the crummy plating at the bottom of the
groove where the solder holes were. Strictly an emergency procedure, of
course. Grin.

May be "uban legend" but a "tech" friend said when patch cable problems
cropped up (he spoke of BNC and TNC's) an experienced guy with a TDR could
tell which of their techs installed each connector.

Old Chief Lynn