marcspaz

So, one of the reasons I leave a meter inline actually came true yesterday, on my Ham gear. I was using my VHF radio with a 200w amp. I have a Watt/VSWR meter between the radio and the amp and another between the amp and the antenna. With no warning and with zero indication other than the meter, my output power on my amplifier shot up to well over 300w, running about 70% more power than designed. What likely happened is, there may be a cold/broken solder joint on a ground circuit for the final stage power regulator. Instead of nuking my amp and possibly having a fire at my desk by continuing to use the amp (because without the meters I wouldn't have known), the meters helped me catch the problem immediately. So now, instead of an $800 loss for the amp and potential untold damage to my home... I most likely will fix my amp for free. Sometime we are prioritizing the wrong potential losses.

Hey Phil! I didn't do any significant technical testing on the MXT500 beyond the peak power. I can grab a signal generator and test it when it gets back from Midland.

Same here. And the reality is if I really want to talk to someone and don't hear anyone, with only 8 high power channels, I can call for a contact on every channel in 2 minutes, and that's allowing 10 seconds or more per channel for someone to reply to me before I spin the dial. Like I said, I'm not against the users agreeing to standardize among themselves... but I'm not holding my breath. Especially since ORI died off, and the was the closest to "coordination" I have seen on this service.

It was... it was intended to establish the repeater travel channel and tone. But don't confuse people still somewhat honoring the ORI principles with "simplex" over the road use. Two distinctly different conversations.

Subbed

@WROZ250 I had to spend some time thinking about a response. Please don't take offense by my last post or this one. While I quoted you, it was really intended for both you and gortex, replying to the combined ideas. It was a little friendly ribbing with some significant truths.

I have to 100% disagree with almost all of this. LoL There is no rule, exception or most. There is only science and fact. The fact of the science is, this is a UHF line of sight service of which range is strictly limited to line of sight and RF interference or lack Thereof. When someone speaks in absolutes with words like "always" or "never", and someone provides and examples of how their statement is incorrect, it's somewhat disingenuous to move the goalpost by throwing the "exception" flag. What is the exception for someone who lives in the city is the norm for someone who lives in the mountains.

Same here. I was on Skyline Drive using a 5w HT and talked 82+ miles to a repeater in Woodbridge VA.

I read your other post about getting hundreds of HT's out to the communities, the 5 area repeaters and the great action/communications plan. That is a winning combo. I wish more communities would follow your lead. Fantastic.

Wonderful find!!! Yes, that looks like what I remember!

I disconnect my cable and toss it on the ground outside when there is lightning around because I'm lazy and a cheapskate who doesn't want to do it right... but it's not the best recommendation. LoL

I commend them for the effort, but don't they realize that using privacy code (PL tone squelch) reduces your ability to successfully make contact?

I will still only have 35 watts. LOL

I am in the Astron Camp, too. I have an SS-30M good for 30 amps cont, 40 peak. It's super quiet with the fans being off a vast majority of the time, and when they are on, they are high volume, low speed, so noise is reduced. I run a 100w HF radio, a 50w VHF/UHF radio, a 40w GMRS radio, and a 225w VHF amplifier with it, and I use it to keep my 100 ah battery charged.

@Hunter399... that's cool! Glad they sent it over to you. I haven't sent mine back yet because I need it for an offroad event on the 30th. Hopefully they take care of us. Looking forward to seeing what they do for you. For what its worth... my MXT400 has more measured output power than my MXT500. I would like to have that corrected, for sure. I miss the old days when we just had to spin a POT and make it happen. Now the FPP alignments lock us out.

< 2:1 just means that if you have a 2:1 or better SWR, don't bother them. LoL

Red lighting mean you owe the FCC money. That can stop your application process. You will probably have to call them.

I can't test mine against the chart above anytime soon. I am disabled and can't get on the roof. I have to hire a climber. During my original test, when I measured the 1.5 or 1.6 (don't recall exactly), it was on a tripod with a 3 foot patch cable. The feed line should not be an issue in that case. If we calculate for the masking of 100 feet of the LMR400 I am testing on now, with the 1.17:1 I am measuring, that would still only be 1.4:1 unmasked VSWR, which is still good and agrees (close enough) to what I measured while it was on the ground. Not sure what to say. My x200 is in the garage and close in performance. While its not the same antenna, it may shed some light for me. I may test it today or tomorrow while on the tripod.

@WROZ250... I appreciate the detailed response. No arguments here. I have to be honest, this is my first x300 and I don't know if this is normal/typical performance. I assumed it was since it's a stacked array with induction coils and a capacitance hat inside the tube to give e it flexibility and hight gain. I do find it odd that it's both wide in range and high gain. Normally I've seen a sacrifice in bandwidth as gain increased. I use to use an x50. It was fine for portable ops (which is what I used it for) but wasn't great. I went with an x200 for portable and an x300 for the house... mostly because I an switching the x300 between 3 different radios and seemed to have the best performance where I expected to use it.

Can I see a picture of the mount and rack?

@WROZ250 Did you look at my images? I tested the X300 on a tripod at 8' with a 3 foot patch cable before I put it on the roof. It was 1.6:1 or better on every GMRS channel. 30 feet off the ground with a ground strap, its even better. The X300 has much wider coverage on UHF than VHF. I will say that if @tweiss3 truly has a 2.5:1 SWR on the 462 frequencies, I would say something is wrong, other than antenna choice.

Here are the readings on my X300 with a 30' run of LMR400. Not getting on the roof anytime soon. Did you add a ground strap to the base of the antenna? I have a run of 6 gauge going to a ground rod. May be the difference.

I'm courious about the SWR on the x300. I have the x300 repeater antenna mounted at my house. The extra height and gain contribute to extending the coverage area. I got an additional 5 miles but switching from the 200 to the 300. I'm going to go grab my analyzer and checking my SWR. You my have something wrong on your end. Last I checked, my SWR was 1.5 or 1.6.

Everything that adds height about the ground (in this case the mount itself) adds height/length to the antenna, thus impacting SWR.

You're not talking to anyone with a bubble pack radio from car to car unless you can see them anyway. Not sure a $10-$20 radio not having a scan function is a real concern in this situation.