n a
My question is not so much about the conductivity of the silver tarnish. I'm concerned about all those little semiconductor discontinuities that "probably" generate excessive passive intermodulation (PIM). No matter how conductive the tarnish might be, it's not silver-on-silver mating surfaces. And through experimentation, we do find that excessive tarnish (which could include other crud) does cause PIM failures.
The client wants -150 dBc (150 dB below a 20-watt carrier).
-140 is achievable with some effort. But to get -150 reliably, we generally only see that on mating surfaces that are squeaky clean!
Thus, my question about Tarn-X. As a labor saver. Not whether tarnish is conductive. But I think I have a book in the library that might provide this number. If I can find it, I'll post it.