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Amp swings lower power?

Don't tell TheRealPorkchop. According to him, the guy who worked on it is one of the best.

I’m not going to derail or hi-jack the mans thread but I will say this bit and then STFU.

I’ve never said Bob was the best or one of the best. I’ve also never said anyone else was the best. I have said “if you’re not gonna be part of the greatest, you’ve gotta be the greatest yourself”.

With that said, only one guy comes to mind as to who is the greatest - me. And that means nothing more than I never fail to satisfy myself, right or wrong. Now if you’d like to have a tiny little pissing contest with me about who is greatest, PM me. Otherwise don’t derail the mans thread with petty BS please, I’m trying hard to NOT derail so many threads as usual.
 
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I’ve never said Bob was the best or one of the best.
True, but in the interest of honesty and integrity, and credibility, and "exposing the underbelly of cb radio" it should be noted you made reference to this website which claims Bob to be one of the best.
http://cbradioblog.com/cbradioblogs-whitelist/

Not really a credible source of information if "coil stretcher" is highly recommended.
I just figured I'd point it out before it gets forgotten.
 
Just for Grins and Giggles,

Take ANY simple SWR meter - put it in line between the Radio and the Amp - set to FWD, and CAL knob? Set it to mid-point - so you can see the needle go up half way...then keep a Wattmeter on the backside of (output of) the amp into that dummy load or antenna - and see about the "negative swing power drop" occurs as a RATIO of similarity between the two references.

Why? I'm trying to see if you may have a network problem, input level problem, jumper cable problem or battery supply issue...

You can glean some basic "run it this way" information and obtain an idea of how much power swing one pushes into the amp and the amp can deliver with - and or other power supply problems or if you have a bad jumper or two in this mess.

The network problem?

I've seen radios with poor soldering (cold blobby stuff) straight from the factory that gives you 4 watts and low SWR until you put it in a mobile situations and find the SWR will skyrocket and nothing seems to help - all because the radio on the bench had a bad part BEFORE the RF reached the radios own built in SWR meter. So a broken cold solder joint reheated, fixed it - but SWR would otherwise be ok into dummy loads and other antennas - until it's placed in a mobile setup where vibration took it's toll.

OR someone inadvertently inserted a cap in the wrong spot from the factory - and quality never caught it. I've seen caps "tack soldered" onto the rear antenna connector that really belonged elsewhere in the strip, do a similar effect to the radios own S/RF meter - due to bad placement.
 
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OK, put the portable SWR meter between radio and selector switch. Put meter on FWD, adjusted needle to the '3' on SWR scale. Keyed up, meter BARELY moved above the '3' mark when I whistled and the wattmeter dropped.

Just so you know my connections:

DX939-------- 5-way switch -----amp---Dosy TC--- 2 way switch-----Solarcon A99
DX88HL -------/... / ......................................................... |
Cobra 25---------/ ............................................................ |-------- 300W Dummy load

*Decimal points are just placeholders - when posting the page removed all of the spaces
*Hyphens are the coax
 
You put the needle at the "CAL" mark, then flip the switch to "REF" while still holding a dead key.
Sorry if you already know this, just trying to help.
 
You put the needle at the "CAL" mark, then flip the switch to "REF" while still holding a dead key.
Sorry if you already know this, just trying to help.
For checking SWR, yes, but I was thinking he was wanting a reading on the FWD setting of the switch. I can check the SWR, too if that is what he was wanting.. Maybe I misread the instructions.
 
That's what I wanted to know - the swing forward - most radios have some forward swing to them in the FWD setting - this way, another SWR meter (or power meter) can demonstrate the "pinch" or compression effect happening to the signal - and in this case, you seem to have more of an issue back at the radio - the Amp is merely showing the effects of "tight carrier control" - if this happens to all your radios - then the amp is still suspect - but that would be a process of elimination - Shadetree would be close to thinking that it may mean a pill or it's input section from the splitter is faulty - and you'd see that as a higher SWR INTO the amp and BACKWARDS SWING from power getting mashed in FWD) once you drive more audio into it (forward power) but we just showed the Radios' got tight Carrier control...SIGH...
 
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Ok, from what I see in the response --:

Did every radio tested respond the same way?

This is what I wanted you to try in this setup - for if you run an amp, you need to set the SWING of power for Audio - using a similar setup to show the RATIO of power in to POWER OUT of amp.

CutlassPowerMeterDemo.png
 
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