®Teflon, environmental Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

This paper describes two specific coaxial cable problems involving the use of TFE Teflon dielectric. One involves flexible coaxial cable, and the other application is semirigid coaxial cable. The electrical requirements of each could aptly be met by the excellent electrical characteristics of TFE Teflon. However, although the material has many outstanding environmental characteristics, its performance, in the two applications described herein, caused severe problems.