One of the joys of having even a modestly equipped machine shop is being able to "just do it" sometimes. I needed a series C male connector to do something on the new URSA MCA, and not one in sight anywhere. Looking it up, I see its an Amphenol part, low volume, so is sure to cost like those military $200 pliers, even if I could find someone who retails them who had them in stock.
Why wait? And why pay for the privilege of looking, looking, setting up a new account with someone, waiting, and so forth. Not much to this actually, only one "trick" was really involved, and it didn't take long either -- if I paid myself $100/hour, I probably made money over buying this, since it only took minutes.
A type C is like a BNC, but .540" OD on the female jack. Turns out 1/2" copper pipe is close enough, as it's a little over spec. So all I had to do was cut one up the right way, mill in the slots for the bayonet lugs, sweat in a 3/8" nut for the bnc, and make the center conductor.
Here's the result. For grins, since I had it lying around, I even made a teflon center spacer to make it a little more robust, but it would work either way, and since I'm never going to take this off once on, it's pure nicety to have it in there anyway.
I milled out the bayonet slots with a 1/16" mill in my lathe toolpost grinder jig I've shown in other threads here. I made them real tight, so that's the real ground connection, and I didn't need to make the normal spiral to crank the connector on -- it's just tight fit and plenty good enough for a few uses. I used a wide angle pipe reamer to make it easy to start the nut for the BNC, and carefully soldered that in to the other end. Though the mech drawings on the web I found spec a 50 mil max center conductor, the reality is more like 80 mils for the particular connector I've got, so I took some number 16 wire (the correct nominal size) but then had to upset it (eg hit it with a hammer) to make it a little wider for good contact. The only "trick" here was getting it the right length for a fully screwed in BNC. Simple -- I made it too long, put the copper pipe on the receptacle, plugged in the center conductor, which held the whole BNC way out of the pipe, and measured the gap -- cut off that much, resolder, and done in just about the time it took to type this post.
And now I can try all those two wire/BNC scintillator heads on the new MCA, including the cute little Bicron one that arrived today. Sweet! Maybe we can find a bargain there too -- that Harshaw Cadillac model I have isn't exactly to be found on every street corner for cheap.