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That "that need to get every last watt out of an amplifier to be happy." thingy is a loosing proposition from the word go. Typically, if an amplifier is designed half-way right, the size of the power supply cable is the last thing that needs to be worried about. the devices inside that...

For what you are wanting to do I think one of the 'non-licensed' services would probably work with out a lot of complications. The draw back to that is extremely short ranges, less than a mile in most cases.

It just 'dawned' on me whats happening here. I have to say these little thingys are nice, but they are basically doing the same thing as the meters on some power supplies do, tell you the voltage and the draw from the power supply. Having had a lot more experience with those old 'mechanical'...

The size of wire to carry that 20 A of current depends on how long the run of that wire is. The longer the run, the larger the conductor. If it's fairly short, 10 - 20 feet or so, #14 should handle it. About the same size of wire as the typical power cord for the radio, maybe? Will the load...

Since I'm not familiar with your radio or that amplifier I won't say anything about your procedure. Sorry.

Think of it like this. An amplifier makes a signal 'bigger'. So, you feed a signal to the -input- of the amplifier to get that 'bigger' signal out of the -output- of the amplifier. From the amplifier's output you can feed that signal to the antenna, OR, to a watt meter to be measured (input...

Radio=====>Amp=====>Meter====>antenna. Output of radio to input of amplifier. Output of amplifier to input of meter. Output of meter to antenna. On amplifiers the input usually reads 'radio' and the amplifier's output may read 'antenna'. That's fairly typical for meters too.

Mind explaining that a little bit, I'm not sure what you mean.

Try it and see what happens. It'll probably work fine. If it's off a bit, do you really think it's going to make much/any practical difference? I don't. If you recalibrate, what do you recalibrate against? If that meter is right to about 10%, that's as good as it gets (even those Birds).

I think you've about got it covered. I'd go ahead and try the torroids anyway. GOOD! Now come over and cure my problems??

This has been bothering me for some time and I can't stand it any longer... How the devil did you get that cat to wear a foil hat? Chloroform?

That's sort of like carrying a bucket of dirt in a car for grounding... ain't it?

I think everything has been covered but just in case. That bed cover isn't doing anything significant dealing with RF. You do have to make sure that an antenna is mounted to the metal, but after than it's usually going to work fine.

Big difference between a choke and a balun, they are not the same at all. Baluns are not all made the same. Different torroid materials, size of wire, etc. So, they are frequency dependent. Broadbanded, yes, but seldom very useful if they aren't at least 'close'. What I've found out over a...

Without getting into it, read the NEC about grounding, both safety grounding and RF grounding. I gets very 'involved' very quickly. A single ground rod 8 feet long or 80 feet long is almost useless for RF. NEC = National Electrical Code

Pick a balun, ask the manufacturer the frequency limit of that balun. It deals with how and from what they are made from.

An exciter is the transmitter feeding a signal to that amplifier. That means that there has to be a way of switching that amplifier 'ON' when transmitting and 'OFF' when receiving. that can be done in a couple of ways. RF switching is one, if RF is fed to the amplifier it turns 'ON', and then...

Grounding is a safety thingy. It doesn't hurt to ground everything in your radio room. The problem with grounding, both safety grounding and RF grounding, is that it ain't simple at all. Multiple ground rods are primarily a 'safety' thing, keep you from getting shocked. RF wire, ground rods...

I think that since you are aware that your cable isn't the best in the world you probably should just go ahead and use it. It doesn't have to be the best in the world to work. Would better shielding be better? Probably, but until there's some particular problem, why waste a lot of worry on it...

And the 'key' was mentioned... All those reactances don't radiate anything, only resistance 'radiates'. SWR tells you nothing about reactance, it can't even 'see' it. That's the benefit of an antenna analyzer. Then all you have to do is get rid of the reactance or neutralize it. ...Sometimes...