Oh boy, a new toy for me...

[LeoG]

Picked up the KG 1000G Plus to use as my base station to complement the repeater I have at my shop.  The repeater makes it fine into the house but sometimes the house has a hard time getting through the trees to the shop repeater.  Going from 20 to 50 watts is only a bit more than 3dB, but it seems to work from the repeater to the house.

I had already setup the CPS with my channels and only needed to read the radio and write back.  The CPS doesn't cover the A,B,C,D buttons so I'll have to do those manually.  Like the power button in that you don't need a long press to turn it on.  People complain about the screen brightness.  Not exactly screaming bright, but it's in a lighted shop and not in a dark vehicle.  Since I already have a KG XS20G I'm already pretty familiar in the way it should work.

Wife doesn't know yet.  I'll probably install it after she goes to bed and she'll see the new radio when she gets up.  LOL.  Hoping it might get rid of some of the off center DMR that I have in my area.  The XS20G lets it right through with the SOC receiver.  Hoping the Super Het might limit or eliminate it.

 

[Socalgmrs]

Compliment it with a high gain antenna 9,10,10 db gain and good coax and that 50w will radiate over 500watts.  Should cut through cover very well.  

[LeoG]

It will be paired with my current Comet 712EFC, so 9.8dBi gain.  60 feet of M&P Hyperflex 13 and 24 feet of Heliax 1/2" hardline past the lightning arrestor.  Eventually I'll get that same antenna on my repeater.  I've only had it for a year now.

[GrouserPad]

Nice choice on radio/coax/antenna. I really like those radios, only quirk is be aware if you set a background priority channel. Two of my 1000+ radios exhibited a faulty acting receive when  a priority channel was set. It seemed to create a cutout every so often. Also, I've been using the latest version of Chirp to program mine and it's been working awesome. The CPS software is good to but for some reason my computer settings make the cps text awful to read so everytime i use the cps I had to fiddle with the gridfont in the settings tab to make the text look decent.

[marcspaz]

Great choice! Congrats! 

[LeoG]

40 minutes ago, GrouserPad said:

Nice choice on radio/coax/antenna. I really like those radios, only quirk is be aware if you set a background priority channel. Two of my 1000+ radios exhibited a faulty acting receive when  a priority channel was set. It seemed to create a cutout every so often. Also, I've been using the latest version of Chirp to program mine and it's been working awesome. The CPS software is good to but for some reason my computer settings make the cps text awful to read so everytime i use the cps I had to fiddle with the gridfont in the settings tab to make the text look decent.

Doesn't look like you can not have a priority channel.  There doesn't seem to be an off choice.

 

Photoshopped the end of the list to the right.

[GrouserPad]

Ok I see now, it was the PRIORITY SCAN(function 19) function that was causing me an intermittent receive cutout every 5 seconds or so when the radio would scan in the background for priority channel activity. This scan looks for whatever channel you select for the priority channel.

[WRYZ926]

I found out that the Icom IC-2730 will do the same thing if you have weather alerts turned on. The radio will scan the weather channels every few seconds and cuts out the channel you are listening to.

I've never turned on the priority scan feature on my KG-1000G and I made sure to turn the weather alerts off on the IC-2730.  

[LeoG]

Well I see that I have the priority scan off.  I normally don't use the scan function anyway.  But I have 3 repeaters that are in my area as well as my own.  Maybe I'll set one side up to scan the 3 channels since in different areas I use different repeaters and need to let the little lady know when I'm moving out of one area and into another.

[WSEN940]

Welcome to the club. It’s a great radio, and performs well.

I never knew that about the priority channel. I’ll keep that in mind if I turn weather alerts on as part of the scan as I also have the IC2730. Good info, thanks WRYZ926

[LeoG]

Here's my little setup.  Of course the KG1000G+ radio, then a Jesverty 30A switching power supply with a Surecom 102 SWR meter and my wife's trusty TD H3.  The power supply is new.  The old one was a Pyramid but lacked the amps to drive the radio.  It was able to run my KC XS20G+ to 29 watts out but won't drive the KG1000G+ to 20 watts for whatever reason.

The extra power pushed my SWR up from 1.01 to 1.03 on my Comet CA 712EFC antenna.  Power seems spot on.  On the repeater 467MHz channels it's pushing 49.x watts and on the lower 15-22 channels looks like it outputting a bit over 51 watts.  Haven't tried into a dummy load yet.

Looks like I'm stuck with my DMR noise, no real change unfortunately.  The speaker output is much louder than the XS20G+.  The fan coming on every time you transmit is annoying.  Guess the silence of the XS20G+ has me spoiled.  3 power settings is really 4.  The medium setting has a menu choice of 10 or 20 watts, I keep it at 20.  Low outputs 4.8 watts, medium 20.5 watts and of course high 49 watts.  We'll have to see about the sensitivity of the superheterodyne receiver as time moves on.

 

[SteveShannon]

51 minutes ago, LeoG said:

The fan coming on every time you transmit is annoying.  Guess the silence of the XS20G+ has me spoiled.

That can be changed in menu 51.

[LeoG]

It can be set to TX, VHT+TX or ALWAYS.  There doesn't seem to be an option to keep it off unless it's hot (VHT)

[SteveShannon]

8 hours ago, LeoG said:

It can be set to TX, VHT+TX or ALWAYS.  There doesn't seem to be an option to keep it off unless it's hot (VHT)

Have you tried VHT + TX?  Doesn’t it only turn on the fan while you are transmitting AND the temperature is too hot?

[LeoG]

2 minutes ago, SteveShannon said:

Have you tried VHT + TX?  Doesn’t it only turn on the fan while you are transmitting AND the temperature is too hot?

Yes.  No matter the setting the fan goes on when the PTT button is pressed and stays on until the machine thinks it's cool enough.  If it was on TX then it would only come on when the PTT button is pressed but not come on when the machine is hot.  Probably not a good idea.  I would assume it has an over ride or just won't transmit when too hot.

[SteveShannon]

5 minutes ago, LeoG said:

Yes.  No matter the setting the fan goes on when the PTT button is pressed and stays on until the machine thinks it's cool enough.  If it was on TX then it would only come on when the PTT button is pressed but not come on when the machine is hot.  Probably not a good idea.  I would assume it has an over ride or just won't transmit when too hot.

There’s no way for it to get too hot except while transmitting.  It’s the final output transistors that require cooling.

[WRUE951]

10 hours ago, LeoG said:

Here's my little setup.  Of course the KG1000G+ radio, then a Jesverty 30A switching power supply with a Surecom 102 SWR meter and my wife's trusty TD H3.  The power supply is new.  The old one was a Pyramid but lacked the amps to drive the radio.  It was able to run my KC XS20G+ to 29 watts out but won't drive the KG1000G+ to 20 watts for whatever reason.

The extra power pushed my SWR up from 1.01 to 1.03 on my Comet CA 712EFC antenna.  Power seems spot on.  On the repeater 467MHz channels it's pushing 49.x watts and on the lower 15-22 channels looks like it outputting a bit over 51 watts.  Haven't tried into a dummy load yet.

Looks like I'm stuck with my DMR noise, no real change unfortunately.  The speaker output is much louder than the XS20G+.  The fan coming on every time you transmit is annoying.  Guess the silence of the XS20G+ has me spoiled.  3 power settings is really 4.  The medium setting has a menu choice of 10 or 20 watts, I keep it at 20.  Low outputs 4.8 watts, medium 20.5 watts and of course high 49 watts.  We'll have to see about the sensitivity of the superheterodyne receiver as time moves on.

 

i love the stand,, now thats unique  

[LeoG]

31 minutes ago, SteveShannon said:

There’s no way for it to get too hot except while transmitting.  It’s the final output transistors that require cooling.

I know.  The XS20G had no fan, and is sealed IP66.  Ya, it's 20 watts, I got a good one that does 26 watts.  Never had an overheating issue and at times I blab.

[LeoG]

28 minutes ago, WRUE951 said:

i love the stand,, now thats unique  

Just thrown on a fold down secretary desk.  No real organization to it.  Just made it fit.  The new power supply and radio are bigger than the old so it's more cramped.  The radio is just on it's mobile mount laying on the table, it has the angle adapter on the display as it comes from the factory.

[tcp2525]

20 hours ago, LeoG said:

It will be paired with my current Comet 712EFC, so 9.8dBi gain.  60 feet of M&P Hyperflex 13 and 24 feet of Heliax 1/2" hardline past the lightning arrestor.  Eventually I'll get that same antenna on my repeater.  I've only had it for a year now.

A man that knows his stuff! That radio is going to sing with the new Heliax! Congrats on the new radio.

[LeoG]

Not exactly sure it'll help.  I'm in a very noisy area.  Lot of DMR chirping in.  And the high gain antenna isn't helping.  The KG1000G+ isn't helping out with knocking down the noise with it's better selectivity as I had hoped.  The radio might end up in my truck and put the XS20G back.  I'll have to see how the wife feels about it since it's primarily in her work space all day.  Even with the tones on the DMR chirps through for a burst here and there and she's not happy about it.  With the old radio it happened, but it's happening more with the 1000.

 

Time will tell.  Plus I need to hunt down that DMR source and see what the heck it is and if they are above board or not.