I recently ordered and installed an L shaped coax adapter on the back of my radio due to the way the coax was being kinked as it entered into the radio in my truck’s dash. I was trying to alleviate the kink. The back of the radio has the cable pretty much jammed into the dash, and unless I want to cut the dash, I don’t see a fix except for using this L adapter. Anyway, I thought it was all good, and it was for a couple of days. I mostly just listen and have not had a lot of reason to talk. Well today I tried to talk and I noticed as soon as I did that the volume of the radio had dropped to nothing after I released the PTT button. It was like I had turned the RF gain all the way down. I could still hear static and voices, but very muted. It would remain that way for awhile and then slowly come back.
After messing with it for a good while, driving around listening to the static and distant signals in low volume, I got home and decided to hook up the SWR meter and see what it showed. With the meter connected, when I pressed the PTT button I got no needle movement whatsoever. Then every now and again it would give me a reading. Change channels and the reading is back to zero again and the radio is back to low volume. So finally I removed the adapter and connected the coax straight to the radio and then the problem was solved. I reinstalled the adapter and the problem came right back, so I concluded that the adapter was the issue. My question is why? Could it simply be defective or is there something else that I am misunderstanding about how it works?
Also since I had the meter out I decided to see what it would do for field strength testing. This is a Surecom SW-114 and it was suggested that it might not even respond. I was alone and in a wide open field (setting SWR again after moving my antenna back a foot) so all I could do was hold it in my hand out in front of the windshield while keying the mic and speaking into it. I saw the needle move just a bit, but it did actually respond, although just barely. I don’t know if this is indicative that the meter is lousy for that or if I utterly did the test wrong. I think ideally it should be out in front of the vehicle a ways off and there should be two people, one to read it and one to key the mic. This is an experimental learning process for me so I was just interested to see it do anything at all.
After messing with it for a good while, driving around listening to the static and distant signals in low volume, I got home and decided to hook up the SWR meter and see what it showed. With the meter connected, when I pressed the PTT button I got no needle movement whatsoever. Then every now and again it would give me a reading. Change channels and the reading is back to zero again and the radio is back to low volume. So finally I removed the adapter and connected the coax straight to the radio and then the problem was solved. I reinstalled the adapter and the problem came right back, so I concluded that the adapter was the issue. My question is why? Could it simply be defective or is there something else that I am misunderstanding about how it works?
Also since I had the meter out I decided to see what it would do for field strength testing. This is a Surecom SW-114 and it was suggested that it might not even respond. I was alone and in a wide open field (setting SWR again after moving my antenna back a foot) so all I could do was hold it in my hand out in front of the windshield while keying the mic and speaking into it. I saw the needle move just a bit, but it did actually respond, although just barely. I don’t know if this is indicative that the meter is lousy for that or if I utterly did the test wrong. I think ideally it should be out in front of the vehicle a ways off and there should be two people, one to read it and one to key the mic. This is an experimental learning process for me so I was just interested to see it do anything at all.
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