Connex 33 HP

Nice install.

I would still have the antenna checked, SWR doesn't show much.

I stress the antenna for a reason, it is the most important part of the system, a proper antenna with a properly balanced rf ground and almost any radio will do better than a high-wattage radio with a crap antenna system.

My antenna system on my beater truck is balanced, meaning that it is set up with the proper RF ground and a proper mount. It extends between the bed and the cab, mounted to the headache rack on the bed (it is a Dodge 12 valve with a flatbed). The radio I have in it now is a TRC-52, it is aligned factory with mods on the audio strip, and an astatic amp mic - it sounds good. I normally have a Johnson 323a in it but I needed room for a 2m rig so the 52 fits right on top without interfering with the 2m rig (Kenwood tr-9000)

This works well enough that I can be 15 miles from the house and talk to my wife without using any external power if she decides to turn on the radio at home.

 

I ran a 3300HP for years. Ray in West Memphis said the board was in bad shape from years of riding on good roads. He didn’t have a new one on hand. So I decided to wait. Never could catch him and bought a new one from channel 5 one day. I didn’t have as good a luck with it as the first one for what ever reason

 

Stryker makes good radios with a lot of options. Connex and Ranger are making some high power radios. Stryker will do up to 100 watts depending on the model while the connex and ranger can do 250-400 also model dependent.

 

Imagine you're playing catch with somebody. If you're standing within arms' reach of each other you can simply hand the ball back and forth to each other. But if you're standing across the field from each other one person has to throw the ball far enough to get it to within the other person's arms length.

Same thing with radios.

To communicate with somebody in the distance you have to be able to transmit far enough to reach their antenna. And they have to be able to transmit far enough to reach your antenna in order for you to receive their signal.

Having a properly tuned antenna helps TX and might help RX as well. Trying to put more wattage through an improperly tuned antenna might help the TX a little but it'll also be reflecting more power back into your radio (because your SWR cannot be a perfect 1:1 match) and it won't help RX, might even hurt it.

 

Thank you for that explanation.

 

A high Q antenna running 10 watts beats a wide-banded antenna running 75 watts