Connex 33hp maxing out a Wilson 5000?

Almost. That meter should have come with a shortie antenna that will screw down into a tapped hole next to the connector on one end of the meter's case. Turn the sensitivity/calibration knob high enough that, at the chosen distance from the antenna under test, the needle sits somewhere between half-scale and full-scale. That will give the needle some room to go both up and down from its starting place. If you find the meter "pegs out" at some point in your circle, stop the test, pick a lower initial setting, and re-walk the whole circle.
If this is on a pickup like in the photo, or a sedan or some vehicle not towing a trailer substantially taller than the antenna's location, you may not see much (or any) variation in the field strength on the meter. Also, if the meter circuit isn't linear (most aren't), it's not safe to figure that a signal that's going up 4 units (however it's marked) is twice as strong as a location that only goes up 2.
Similarly, comparing more than one transmitter as received by your signal strength meter can really show that one is stronger than another, but not by how much.

When our friends at FCC go on a report of an overpowered transmitter, part of what they do before knocking on the door is to take field strength measurements with a calibrated "frequency selective voltmeter" or a spectrum analyzer that is calibrated to a known standard. They'll set up at a known distance and measure the field density, often as a value measured in microvolts per square meter. They know what 4 watts should look like, with allowances for antenna gain or loss and transmission line loss.

That's also how they bust low power unlicensed FM stations, by the way.

Hope that helps and isn't way more than you were asking

73

 

If you had it hooked inline, with the little antenna connected, that little antenna was most likely the culprit.

 

As someone pointed out, any drive power (the radio itself) that exceeds 1 or 1.5 watts is going to make that KL amp turn expensive components into ash.

Unless the tweakage you had done actually resulted in a lower output -- and that would constitute a precedent amongst most "shops" -- then whatever was done will just hasten the demise of that amp.

As you might want to run the Connex barefoot from time to time, f'r instance whilst the amp is away being repaired, see if the shop where you got it will align the radio so that the "LO" RF PWR is set at one watt and then remember to only run the radio on low power whenever the amp is switched on.

Hope that helps.
73

 

You mean it not because most have crappy programming?

What if they only played classic rock, would they leave them alone?

 

"I'm gunna try and run the pdc2 again but minus the antenna for it"

I find it dubious at best the tiny FS antenna screwed into its mount caused such a loss. At most the power transferred to it in FWD with pot cranked up is a few milliwatts. Far more likely is that meter has a fault in the path through internally. You should not be keeping such a small low quality meter in line all the time. Best to have no meter in line. Take it apart and inspect the hot through and shield through especially where the connectors join the board. If you want to keep it in the vehicle use it as an FSM with tiny antenna attached. To clarify the meter will not be connected to anything, it is merely functioning as an independant FSM in this case. You want nothing in line but jumper, amp, antenna. Set the pot barefoot and amp on compromising for a setting that shows relative field strength both barefoot and running power. If you insist on having a meter inline in your mobile all the time get something much better.

 

Lets not forget that you need carrier (dead key) power to get range. These knobs that drop the dead key wattage down to almost nothing and boost the modulation way up just to sound loud in the parking lot, but have no range.