What use are these couplers?

[Radio Fox]

I found these couplers on eBay a few weeks ago. I was wondering what possible use they could be put to?

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.d...=STRK:MEWAX:IT

[mockingbird]

Those are BNC couplers. Looks like they are for European television cable wire. Old ethernet couplers would have fasteners.

[seanc]

I was going to say 'those couplers are useful because', but now I can't understand what the point is either. You're just going male > female > male

[Agent24]

Only if you used both at the same time!

But I think they just took the photo that way so you know what each end looks like.

[Toasty]

Not BNC. BNC has pins on the outside on the female connector, and a slotted rotating sleeve on the male.

>>Looks like they are for European television cable wire.<<
Yes.
PAL (Belling Lee) connectors. Looks like it's used to extend the connector from the back of a TV or to fit a threaded connector (the side with the splits). From pictures of the TV's the connector on the back looks to be recessed. If your cable has a large insulator blob at the end, it might not fit into the TV properly.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TV_aerial_plug

These look similar to an RCA connector in size, but RCA has a long male pin and conversely the female side would need to be as deep.

Toast

[Radio Fox]

Originally Posted by seanc

I was going to say 'those couplers are useful because', but now I can't understand what the point is either. You're just going male > female > male

Exactly. As the listing says, they are male one end & female the other.

Sorry everyone else, I should have made it clearer in my first post. They are used for TV aerial connections in the UK, but all they will do is extend the plug on the end of your aerial coax lead by about half an inch. What's the point of that?

Unless, as Toasty pointed out, you have a recessed socket on your TV and a non standard sized plug on the end of your aerial lead, but I have never come across that before.

Someone, somewhere must have a use for them though, as he has sold 2 packs.

[Agent24]

I just realized you are right - these things make no sense. Only sensible reason would be as you say, a recessed socket.

[PCBONEZ]

As Toasty said:
""... used to extend the connector from the back of a TV or to fit a threaded connector (the side with the splits).""

It converts to a slip-fit.
The splits let it slip over threads.

Cheap dollar store cables for TV-to-VCR or whatever sold here do the same trick at the back of the TV end. [Or both ends.]
No threads and a split outer ring.
.

[Agent24]

Aah.. Guess I can't read then. ha ha

[Radio Fox]

Originally Posted by PCBONEZ

As Toasty said:
""... used to extend the connector from the back of a TV or to fit a threaded connector (the side with the splits).""

It converts to a slip-fit.
The splits let it slip over threads.

Cheap dollar store cables for TV-to-VCR or whatever sold here do the same trick at the back of the TV end. [Or both ends.]
No threads and a split outer ring.
.

Yep. That would be true if a threaded plug existed which was compatible with the Belling Lee socket, but I don't think one exists.

[PCBONEZ]

Originally Posted by Radio Fox

Yep. That would be true if a threaded plug existed which was compatible with the Belling Lee socket, but I don't think one exists.

And therefore when you have a cable with a threaded plug on the end [which isn't compatible with the Belling Lee socket] you would need this adapter to make you cable compatible with the Belling Lee socket on the back of the TV.
.
~ Ahem...
.

[Radio Fox]

Originally Posted by PCBONEZ

And therefore when you have a cable with a threaded plug on the end [which isn't compatible with the Belling Lee socket] you would need this adapter to make you cable compatible with the Belling Lee socket on the back of the TV.
.
~ Ahem...
.

But you cannot convert a threaded plug to a Belling Lee plug, if a threaded plug doesn't exist which can be converted. There isn't a threaded plug with the same pin dimensions or outside diameter dimensions which the Belling Lee socket could fit over.

[PCBONEZ]

Coax comes with all kinds of threaded plugs.
They just aren't Belling Lee.
.
Things get interesting when people need adapters for things from across the big pond that are standard on one side but not the other.
.
And as image of a different adapter shows, there is a threaded plug with the same dimensions as Belling Lee.
.

[Toasty]

Is there a shot of the threaded side of that? It looks like an 'F' to B-L adapter, which would have a very small receptacle on the threaded side. If it has the B-L size hole there, then I think we found a match.

I have come across many "wacky" connectors and adapters in my travels. I put nothing out of the realm of possibilities. I've even made a few myself.

Toast

[PCBONEZ]

Originally Posted by Toasty

Is there a shot of the threaded side of that? It looks like an 'F' to B-L adapter, which would have a very small receptacle on the threaded side. If it has the B-L size hole there, then I think we found a match.

I dunno. Youre next sentence pretty much explains why I'm not gonna look that hard.

Originally Posted by Toasty

I have come across many "wacky" connectors and adapters in my travels. I put nothing out of the realm of possibilities.

Yup, especially when you get into test equipment and propriety industrial parts as used in places like, um, Nuke plants, the possibilities become endless.

I've already seen lots of things that 'don't' or 'shouldn't' exist that have some peculiar purpose unfathomable to anyone outside of some specialty so I don't really question if a purpose exists for something just because I can't think of one.

If the part in question had a hole through the tip [for soldering the center wire] I'd say it's simply a crimp-on PAL [aka Belling Lee] connector for the end of a cable.
.

[Radio Fox]

Originally Posted by PCBONEZ

Coax comes with all kinds of threaded plugs.
They just aren't Belling Lee...

I agree, but for the theory that the adapters on eBay are to convert a threaded to a non-threaded connector, then they obviously have to be compatible.

Originally Posted by PCBONEZ

...And as image of a different adapter shows, there is a threaded plug with the same dimensions as Belling Lee.
.

As you said yourself in your following post, you don't know what the threaded end is, so how can you say that it has the same dimensions as a B-L?

It is a B-L plug to F socket, as shown below (as Toasty suspected). There is no way you could force a Belling Lee socket into an F socket without the aid of a big hammer.

Of course, I agree that there are many weird & wonderfull plugs & sockets out there that I have never come across, and possible at some time a threaded plug with similar dimensions to a B-L may have been made for a specific application.

I still think that it's pretty unlikely that the 2 buyers of those adapters bought them for that purpose though. I bet they bought them by mistake, thinking they were male - male, or female - female adapters.

I notice that no feedback was given or received for the items.

[PCBONEZ]

And you don't know what the dimensions are on the female end in you original post so you don't know if that end is Belling Lee in the first place.
.

[PCBONEZ]

You see this guy...
Without that OP connector this might be too f*cking fat to fit into the back of some TV sets.

What I would like to know is why you are spending so much time obsessing over a connector you say you don't have a use for.
- If you want one just to make your junk box look more full, buy one.

.

[Toasty]

...and send one to me. I like wacko connectors!