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In microwave systems coaxial microwave links often have to be regularly connected and disconnected, which means threading and unthreading, torquing and untorquing. As a result, it is not possible to densely pack regular connectors as room is needed for threading and for the use of a torque wrench. Also, in helicopters, airplanes and vehicles, connectors usually have to be safely secured, normally using safety wire through the wire holes in the coupling nuts of the connectors, which is timeconsuming.
An alternative is to use multipin connectors to connect microwave signals between two parts of a system. Standard circular blind mate series MIL-DTL-38999 connectors are designed and approved by the military and aerospace industry to meet the most stringent requirements in severe environments and are used for cable-to-panel applications in military, aerospace and other demanding situations.
Originally these connectors were designed to connect up to 128 wires for electronic equipment, but the necessity arose to incorporate coaxial cable contacts for high frequency or microwave applications and the requirement to combine simple electronic wire contacts and microwave coaxial contacts. The disadvantage is the dependence on the contact layouts offered for size 8, size 12 or other coaxial contacts. There is often the need to package numerous microwave links in a connector and to use different coaxial cables, e.g. a fairly thin and flexible cable for higher frequency applications or shorter leads, or a thicker cable for low loss applications and longer assemblies. Size 8, size 12 or other contacts are only available for some coaxial cables and might not be ideal for the application it is intended for. In addition, most standard coaxial contacts are not designed for higher frequency applications.
To address this issue, Spectrum Elektrotechnik has introduced multipin connectors beginning with die SQ-8 (shown in Figure...