BTech 50x1 overheating?

[WRPH494]

Have a 50x1 and it acts like it overheats when transmitting longer than a minute on repeater channels.  Fan comes on a few seconds before it reboots.  Don't use it on simplex very much, and it is direct powered to the battery, and has a no-frills magnetic mounted 1/4 wave antenna, with a swr of 1.2, pickup truck roof center mounted.  Really hope that it isn't defective, but its supposed to be repeater capable, so I'm pretty sure it isn't exceeding the duty cycle.  Any insights?

[wayoverthere]

1 hour ago, WRPH494 said:

Have a 50x1 and it acts like it overheats when transmitting longer than a minute on repeater channels.  Fan comes on a few seconds before it reboots.  Don't use it on simplex very much, and it is direct powered to the battery, and has a no-frills magnetic mounted 1/4 wave antenna, with a swr of 1.2, pickup truck roof center mounted.  Really hope that it isn't defective, but its supposed to be repeater capable, so I'm pretty sure it isn't exceeding the duty cycle.  Any insights?

what power level are you running at?  i know mine takes a good 45 seconds on high before the fan kicks on, and the power starts dropping almost immediately, from 48 watts and settling at 25 watts.  is it only on high power? or does it work correctly at lower levels?

i think the duty cycle is something like 30%, iirc.

[WRPH494]

Yeah, been running it on full power.  Went through the User's manual that came with it, and nothing on duty cycle in it (downloaded the pdf file and used about every phrase i could think of to find the duty cycle.....no joy).  Im just wondering if it would be better to have it turned down to 5w, and use the BTech UV-25 amp and it gives me almost 40w transmit power without the overheat issue. Use that until I can find one that is not prone to the overheating issue.  That, and it would also be useable with handhelds too. Down side to an amp is that there will be signal loss due to multiple antenna connections.  Cheaper to get the amp and have multiple uses for it instead of shelling out neighborhood of 4 Franklins or more for a new radio. Or maybe find a way to get more air moving through the radio case to cool it down (new fan with a higher cfm rating, and enlarge/add vent holes to the case)

[BoxCar]

BTECH's duty cycle is around 20%. That's12 minutes of transmitting spread over an hour. YMMV